Libraries in Germany – Expert Discussion

What a few years ago looked like a specter in the eyes of many scientific and scholarly publishers is today part of daily operations. Thanks to new business models, quality assured publications and Open Access is no contradiction.

Paradoxical as it may sound, when in August 2010 the first volume in the series Topoi. Berlin Studies in the Ancient World (Topoi. Berliner Studien der Alten Welt) is published by De Gruyter, the traditional Berlin scientific and scholarly publisher will have taken a big step in the modern world.

Simultaneously with the appearance of the book, the combined research of the excellence cluster “Topoi” will be made available in digital form on the Internet. “This series is for us a pilot project for connecting the idea of Open Access with the editorial supervision of publications”, explains Sven Fund, Managing Director of De Gruyter.

Earning money with Open Access

The discussion of Open Access publications in Germany, especially in the humanities, is still very controversial. The relatively new form of publication has everywhere been met with reservations – by scientists and scholars as well as by publishers. But more and more scientific and scholarly publishers are facing the new challenge. They are developing new business models that respond to the political demand of scientific and scholarly organizations. And this is that the results of publicly funded research should be available to all, free of charge.

“We don’t see the call for Open Access as a threat. But of course it must be clear that Open Access can’t mean that publishers provide their services free of charge”, says Fund. In his opinion, “all publishers that already have experience with Open Access see that it can be a fair, transparent model with which they can earn money”.

No cost to the user

The Open Access model presented by De Gruyter a year ago is called “De Gruyter Open Library”. It provides that all articles from all publication, both journals and books, can be released online against payment by the author – and from the date that the work is printed or available as an e-book. “The special feature of our model is that we use the proceeds from Open Access to reduce the retail price of our publications”, explains Fund. Only rarely do scientific or scholarly authors themselves pay for the Open Access publication. Most are financed by research institutions.

A very similar model is offered by Springer Publishers. Since summer 2004, its authors have the choice between the traditional subscription model and the new “Springer Open Choice”. Here too the author and not the user bears the costs of publishing services and the scientific or scholarly publication is available free of charge.

Fund quickly dispels concerns that the publisher might omit quality controls in the case of self-paid publications. “No reputable publisher can afford to publish poor quality. That would destroy the reputation of journals and book series.” Every publication is still run through a process of quality assurance and is judged by peer review. “When we receive a publication, we don’t yet know whether it will appear as Open Access. The authors must themselves decide that after the author’s proof – that is, at the very end of the publishing process”.

Everything Open Access in future?

De Gruyter has had positive experiences with “Open Library”. The model will be adopted everywhere that the influence of funding bodies is relatively strong – for example, in the excellence clusters of the German Research Foundation. And what’s next? For Sven Fund, the future continues to lie in hybrid models that work with a kind of mixed calculation. He is sceptical about whether publication models that are financed entirely by research funding constitute a permanent solution.

“There are already a few areas of science where everything is published only as Open Access”, says Fund. “But these are extremely small, highly specialized niches, such as high-energy physics.” And so scientific and scholarly publishers will for some time still have at least one foot in the old world.