Free Access to Scientific Information

• Joint Press Release of the
• Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)
• Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR)
• Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)

[ptb] The home of scientific articles are generally professional journals. This home, however, has increasingly become an "expensive turf" which libraries are often scarcely able to still afford and react by cancelling magazine and journal subscriptions. The access to knowledge is thus hampered "locally". The "Open Access" movement wants to oppose this and demands access free of charge to scientific information via the Internet - without limitations as to time and place. In the course of this, also the three scientific institutions - the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) - have now signed the so-called "Berlin Declaration" at the Federal Ministry of Economics. A declaration in which the signers pledge to make their own publications accessible, free of charge, via the Internet.

The Berlin Declaration dates from a conference organised by the Max Planck Society in the year 2003: "Conference on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities". The result of this conference was the very Berlin Declaration which has meanwhile been signed by many national and international research institutions and universities. The signers pledge to file their scientific manuscripts in databases and make them freely accessible via the Internet. If it is a matter of articles which are published initially in printed form in a professional journal, the Internet version, exempt from charges, is to be given free access after a waiting period of typically 6 months after the initial publication. Moreover, the signers pledge to pay for their authors the fees required in purely "open access" journals and support the authors in every type of "open access" publication.

How the scientific publication system will be changed by such measures can only be guessed at in the present situation. Certain is, however, that the pressure on the scientific publishing companies will increase, particularly as these are affiliated with the scientists in several respects. Thus the scientists, as authors, furnish the ready-for-press manuscripts; in the so-called "peer review" process they appraise the manuscripts submitted by other authors to the publishing company for publication; and as co-editors of journals and magazines, they take on the coordinating and editing tasks for the publishing company. Thus, the publishing companies are consequently closely associated with the very scientists which are now, in the course of the Open Access Movement, emancipating themselves journalistically.

Contact:
Dr. Joachim E. Meier
Head of Section "Academic Library"
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)
Bundesallee 100
38116 Braunschweig
Tel.: 0531 / 592 8131
e-mail: joachim.meier@ptb.de

• Further information:
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html [externer link]
• · Signers of the Berlin Declaration http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/signatories.html [externer link]

• · General information on the "Open Access" Movement
• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Access [externer link]
• http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm [externer link]
• http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm [externer link]
• http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/ [externer link]
• http://www.openaccess-germany.de/ [externer link]

An impression of the papers issued by the BAM, BGR and PTB and of the professional articles their scientists publish is indicated by the Internet presence of the federal institutes, above all by the references in the databases:

		For the PTB: www.ptb.de Here in particular the category "Publikationen" (Publications) and the database "PTB-Publica"
		For the BAM: www.bam.de [externer link] Here in particular the category "Publikationen" (Publications) and the database "BAM-Publica"
		For the BGR: www.bgr.bund.de [externer link] Here in particular the category "Produkte/Schriften" (Products/papers/publications)