Abstract

Beginning with the April 2019 issue, the Journal of Research in Music Education will be freely available to all NAfME members. As with the association’s other publications, a subscription to the electronic version of the JRME will now be included as part of general NAfME membership. 1 Newly published content as well as the full catalog of articles dating back to the journal’s founding in 1953 will be accessible electronically using the links located on NAfME’s Journals/Magazines web page (https://nafme.org/my-classroom/journals-magazines/). As an additional feature, to keep up with new articles and to automatically receive the table of contents for each new issue, sign up for email alerts on SAGE’s JRME home page.
The purpose of research is to gain new knowledge, yet the inherent demand of knowledge is that it becomes known. Making research accessible to the entirety of the NAfME community helps everyone to know what questions are being asked, what methods are being used, and what conclusions are being derived. It allows new findings to be considered and questions to be posed. It opens doorways to new resources and opens avenues for discussion, application, brainstorming, and problem-solving. As Harry Price stated in his recent Senior Researcher Address, “Think of the chances for interactions that we could all have!” (2018, p. 258). The exclamation mark is well-deserved. Removing barriers to published research underscores the integration of scholarly inquiry into the rich mix of activity we collectively consider to be part of the music teaching and learning enterprise—a part of, rather than set apart from, music education.
This is a momentous and positive change to the journal’s subscription policy, one that reflects the dynamic relationship between the study of and the practice of music teaching and learning. This harkens back to Peter Webster’s call for “better pathways to celebrate the findings of our research to help with the advancement of practice” (2014, p. 205). In the original context, Webster was referring to the possibility of re-merging biennial in-service and research/higher education events, a format that will, in fact, be reinstated by NAfME in 2020. The inclusion of the JRME as a membership benefit for all is an ongoing manifestation of this principle. A debt of thanks is owed to all the SRME and NEB board members who advocated for and implemented this change.
