Free access to scientific information

BAM, BGR and PTB sign "Berlin declaration"

The foundation of scientific papers is generally technical journals. However, this foundation is increasingly becoming a "expensive terrain", which libraries can often not afford and therefore react by cancelling subscriptions to journals. The access to knowledge is thus handicapped "locally". The "open access" movement intends to steer against this tendency and demands free access to specialist scientific information over the internet – without any temporal or local restriction. The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) and the Federal Institute of Physics and Metrology (PTB) the three scientific institutions under the authority of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) have now also joined this movement and signed the so-called "Berlin declaration". By signing this declaration the signatories commit themselves to making their own publications accessible free of charge over the internet.

The Berlin declaration goes back to a conference organised by the Max Planck Society in 2003: "Conference on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities". The outcome of this conference was the Berlin declaration, which was signed meanwhile by many national and international research establishments and universities. The signatories commit themselves to transcribe their scientific manuscripts into data bases and make them freely accessible via internet. For papers, which are first published in a printed form in a technical journal, the free internet version is to be released after a waiting period of typically 6 months after the first publication. In addition, the signatories commit themselves to pay the authors the fees demanded for a publication in pure "open access" journals and support them in each kind "of open access" publication.

In the current situation, it can only be speculated on how the landscape of scientific publications may change due to such actions. It is certain to increase the pressure on specialist publishing houses, all the more that they are in connection with the scientists in various ways. Scientists, in their capacity as authors, provide ready-to-print manuscripts to the publishers. In a so-called "peer review" processes they examine the manuscripts of other authors submitted to the publishing houses for publication and as co-editors of journals they undertake coordinating and editorial tasks for the publishing houses. The publishing houses are thus closely connected with those scientists who now set themselves free in the publishing world through this open access movement.
ptb

Contact:
Dr. Joachim E. Meier
Head of Section „Scientific Libraries“
Federal Institute of Physics and Metrology (PTB)
Bundesallee 100
38116 Braunschweig
phone: 0531 / 592 8131
email: joachim.meier@ptb.de

More informationen:
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities
http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html

• Signatories of the Berlin Declaration
http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/signatories.html

• General information to the „Open-Access“ Movement
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Access
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/
http://www.openaccess-germany.de/

An impression of BAM’s, BGR’s and PTB’s journals and their scientists’ scientific papers can be gained from the internet presentations of these Federal Institutes, first of all from the bibliographies in the data bases:

For PTB: www.ptb.de
• In particular, the column "Publikationen" (Publications) and the data base „PTB-Publica“

For BAM: www.bam.de
• In particular, the column „Publikationen“(Publications) and the data base „BAM-Publica“

For BGR: www.bgr.bund.de
• In particular, the column „Produkte/Schriften“ (Products/journals)

top