In the news this week, former AHA president Jonathan Spence will give this year’s Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. Also newsworthy, a closer look at the new College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) report, which we noted on the AHA blog Tuesday. We bring you four articles on publishing, discussing form, blogs, and publishers as gatekeepers. To continue to celebrate Women’s History Month we present four women’s history articles. Learn about women’s history blogs, events this month, and see fascinating photos of women in history. Two links to history audio and walking tours also make it into WWR this week,  one on U Street in Washington, D.C. and the other on North Carolina State University. Finally, we finish off with the history of the Census, Popular Science archives, the Toronto Museum Project, an origin of a simile, and a look at jobs of “yesteryear.”

News

• Jonathan Spence Will Deliver 2010 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities
  The Chronicle reports that Jonathan Spence, expert in Chinese history and culture and former AHA president, will present the 2010 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, which comes with a $10,000 honorarium.
• Salaries Fell for 32.6% of Faculty
  More analysis of the salary changes for faculty in 2009-10 from the CUPA-HR report, which we reported on earlier this week. 

Publishing

• The Social Contract of Scholarly Publishing
  Dan Cohen challenges humanities scholars to think beyond the form of scholarship to the quality of the content–regardless of whether it is in a blog, a web site, a journal article, or book
• Science Blogging as a Public Outreach Tool — Unfulfilled Potential or Unrealistic Expectation?
  Perhaps as a counterpoint to the link listed above, David Crotty at Scholarly Kitchen asks what we might lose if things like new forms of discourse (such as blogs) were evaluated by professional peers. He suggests they would lose much of the character that makes them distinctive and interesting.
• How blogging made me a better writer
  Some thoughts from a PhD student on how blogging can make one a better writer.
• Pondering Good Faith in Publishing
  The recent discrediting of Charles Pellegrino’s The Last Train From Hiroshima raises questions about how well publishers are performing their role as the gatekeepers of literary culture.

Women’s History

• It’s Women’s History Month: Do You Know Where The Women’s History Blogs Are?
  Tenured Radical points to some “history blogs that celebrate women’s history every day of the year.”
• Women of the Commons
  Stephanie Fysh culls the Flickr Commons to celebrate International Women’s Day with images of women “every one of them uncommon and important in her own way.”
• Women’s History Month Events
  Check out local events in Washington, D.C. and Long Island, New York.
• Female WWII Pilots: The Original Fly Girls
  “About 1,100 young women flew military aircraft stateside during World War II as part of a program called Women Airforce Service Pilots — WASP for short.” Explore the WASP Interactive page, which features personal essays, a timeline, and a narrated tale from Lillian Lorraine Yonally who was able to capture rare color photographs during her time as a WASP.

Tours

• U Street Audio Tour
  Cultural Tourism DC has just released a downloadable audio tour on the history of U Street in D.C. The tour is narrated by Korva Coleman of NPR.
• North Carolina State U. Shares Campus History via New Smartphone Service
  A walking tour of North Carolina State University can now incorporate “hundreds of archival photos” with the help of smartphones and the new “WolfWalk” system.

More

• Encouraging Participation in the Census
  The Spellbound Blog takes an interesting look at past propaganda efforts of the U.S. census.
• Popular Science – Entire Archives Now Free Online
  The entire 137-year archive of Popular Science is now available for free viewing online. Hat tip.
• Toronto Museum Project
  A new site explores Toronto history through “100 stories inspired by artifacts…from the City of Toronto’s 150,000-item Historical Collection.”
• ‘Mad as a Hatter’: The History of a Simile
  Explore the origin of and theories behind Alice in Wonderland’s mysterious Mad Hatter and Carroll’s famous simile, He’s mad as a hatter.
• The Jobs Of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations
  As we progress further into our technological culture, NPR looks back on the jobs of yesteryear and talks to “people who once filled those oft-forgotten jobs.”

Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, Jessica Pritchard, and Robert B. Townsend

This post first appeared on AHA Today.