HELP WANTED: Making an updated asexual research bibliography

Hello all!

Now that the Asexual Explorations bibliography has officially been retired, there is a dearth of good resources for people who want to start reading up on asexual research but have no idea where to start. Bibliographies - whether comprehensive or more finely curated - help people discover more about a field by indexing relevent article in one place, instead of leaving people to stumble around on search engines on their own.

That’s where the asexual research zotero library comes in - the goal here is to initially work on a comprehensive bibliography of as much known asexual research as possible, followed by curated sub-lists which will be more streamlined and accessible for people looking for research on a specific topic.



Please see the read more below for some more details, or send us a message here or to me at sennkestra@gmail.com if you want to help or if you have any questions or suggestions! We are super open to any feedback or suggestions anyone might have for how to structure or run this project, since it’s the first time we’ve tried anything like this.

Signal boosting is also greatly appreciated :)

About Zotero



Zotero is a free citation management software tool that can be used to build up bibliographies based on citation data which can be either manually entered or automatically captured from publisher listings, research catalogs, pdf metadata, or other sources. Zotero has browser extensions that make it easy to quickly capture a lot of data from online listings.

As a citation manager, Zotero is not necessarily a library of actual research works (many of which are still behind paywalls). Instead, each entry includes the information needed to find any given work, including urls when applicable.

The Asexual Research library is specifically set up as a shared Zotero group, which allows multiple members to collaborate on adding and organizing entries in a single shared library, allowing us to crowdsource the addition of new items.

You can learn more about Zotero here: https://www.zotero.org/

And the actual group is here: https://www.zotero.org/groups/asexual_research

If you want to help, but have never used Zotero before, I am happy to give you a quick walkthrough if you shoot me an email at sennkestra@gmail.com.

About the Asexual Research Group Library

The Asexual Research Group library is currently set up for closed membership, but public viewing. This means that

In order to view or use the library, all you need to do is click a link to the library - no account or login or password required. This makes it easy for prospective students or researchers who want to use the library to view it with a single click.

This makes it easy for prospective students or researchers who want to use the library to view it with a single click. In order to edit the library, however (adding, moving, changing, or deleting entries), you must be a member of the group. In order to become a member, you will need to contact one of the admins (currently me) for an email invite. As of right now, the plan is to allow anyone who sends a request to be a member, so it’s not meant to be exclusive - it’s just a safety measure that allows us to block any trolls or spammers who are found to be messing with library contents.

It should be noted that the primary target of this group is asexual community members, whether they are researchers themselves, activists, students, or just people who like to understand or follow asexual research. As such, there will likely be a lot of documentation or discussion that is from the perspective of ace community activists rather than formal academic researchers.

That said, we also hope to make this project useful for anyone interested in the study of asexuality, especially in light of the lack of overall asexual research resources for any audiences. That include both non-ace researchers as well as any laypeople who just finds the topic interesting, and we would like to invite them to contribute as well!

Project Stages

Stage 1: Stocking the library (the current step)

This is where we are now. At this point, the main goal is getting as many listings as possible into the library, as there is a lot of extant research already out there.



Although entries can also be manually entered by hand, by far the easiest way to add new entries is through one of the Zotero browser extensions, which allow you to auto-import things into the library.

What’s needed at this point:

At the point, what we really need is volunteers who either already use zotero or who are willing to learn,in order to help add as many entries as possible into the library (it only takes about 15 minutes to learn the basics, and I’d be happy to set up quick chats to walk people through it).



While it would help to have people who are also knowledgeable about asexual research at this point, it’s not required - one thing that we could use help with is taking existing research lists and adding items from them to Zotero one by one, which requires no knowledge of existing literature at all.

Stage 2: Filling in the Gaps

Once we have a substantial amount of content added to the library, we’ll need help coming through these entries to add information that is still missing and correct any items that may have imported incorrectly. This means:

Adding any lesser known papers that might still be missing



Adding missing information to incomplete entries (for example, adding things like author names, publishing companies, years, or other basic info if it has not been imported properly).



Correcting any incorrect entries (for example, fixing imports where author first and last name have been incorrectly swapped)

Adding links to publicly accessible pdfs, when available

etc.

What’s will be needed at that point:

At that point, we need people from two groups:

On the one hand, people who are well-versed in current asexual research are needed to help find lesser know article that still need to be added



On the other hand, we also need volunteers to proofread and double check entries, which requires no knowledge of current research at all (just free time and attention to detail)

Since this step should (hopefully) be less volume-intensive, this is a place where even people who don’t have zotero installed can help - if you can write up any missing/incorrect items in an email and send it to me or another volunteer to add to Zotero, that would also be great!



If you are a current researcher, this would also be a good time to promo any of your own works that we might have missed.

Stage 3: Curating the library and adding useful annotations and guides

Once the library is stocked with a large raw list of research, it’s time to start curating that data in a way that will make it actually useful for people.

Making comprehensive sub-lists of specific topics (for example: a sub-library of all articles that mention asexuality and autism, or all articles about asexuality from gender studies journals). These are lists that include all known research on a topic, regardless of quality, and should be editable by anyone.

Making curated sub-lists that are carefully crafted to include the most useful and highest quality research on a particular topic. (For example, a list of recommended sociological research, a list of recommended papers for undergrads doing class papers, etc.). As these are inherently subjective, these are ideally curated and signed by specific person or group of people.

Adding internal commentary

Adding links to external commentary or summaries - for example, adding links to public summaries of paywalled papers, or links to published commentary or criticism

Stage 4: Continuing to update the bibliography as new research is published

Once a basic library is established, the final step is just continuing to update it as new research is released! Here is where we will really rely on crowdsourcing, in the hopes that with many people keeping an eye on research and adding things they spot we will be able to maintain a decently comprehensive list.

Again, if you are interested in helping with any of the above, please send in an ask or message or send me an email at sennkestra@gmail.com!