Preamble
Open Access stands for unlimited and free access to quality-controlled scholarly information on the internet. Thanks to the elimination of technical, financial, and legal barriers, Open Access has helped to accelerate academic innovation processes and to improve the visibility of research results. This supports scholars in their research and publishing and maximises the benefits of publicly funded research. As a member of the Leibniz Association, Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) is committed to Open Access. Shaping the transition to Open Access is one of the key objectives in TIB’s Strategic Action Areas. With the implementation of this policy, TIB aims to make all publications by TIB staff fully available in Open Access.
Recommendations and obligations
(1) Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) demands from its staff to publish their research results and publications in accordance with the Open Access principle to ensure direct Open Access. This should be done, if possible, as an immediate Open Access publication under a free license (preferably CC BY) or, alternatively, as direct publication of a copy in the Open Access repository RENATE. This applies not only to journal articles, but also to other types of publications such as monographs, papers in edited volumes, conference proceedings, and posters.
Preference should be given to journals, platforms, or publishers with a non-profit business model, especially those that do not charge author fees (“Diamond Open Access”). Preference should also be given to publication venues that are publicly or scientifically funded and not-for-profit. Purely Open Access journals are to be preferred to those that publish only a selection of their articles in Open Access (“Hybrid Open Access”).
(2) Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) expects its staff to register their publications in TIB’s research information system and to exercise their secondary publishing rights by publishing copies of their publications in the RENATE repository either in parallel or as soon as possible thereafter.
(3) TIB’s staff are requested not to grant exclusive rights of use to publishers when entering into a publishing contract. They should instead retain exploitation rights and should grant repositories non-exclusive rights of use. In this way, Open Access can be guaranteed, even if commercial use by publishers does take place.
(4) Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) calls on its staff to play an active role in the transition to Open Access. It expects its staff to evaluate their own activities in the context of reviewing, editing, or publishing publications accordingly. TIB calls on its staff to use their own positions to promote the transition to Open Access in editorial offices, publishing houses, and learned societies. Commitment to science-led, independent, and not-for-profit services is particularly encouraged.
Implementation
TIB supports its staff in their publishing activities by:
- Reviewing publications by its staff for secondary publishing rights and making them available in the RENATE repository.
- Supporting journals and platforms in which TIB members can publish without APCs.
- Providing financial support for publications by its staff in genuine Open Access formats, where all contributions are made freely available in full and immediately upon publication.
- Informing and advising its staff about Open Access, advising them on the selection of suitable publication venues, and assisting them in clarifying legal issues relating to the Open Access publication of their research results.
TIB also supports Open Access by:
- Negotiating science-friendly Open Access clauses in contracts with publishers.
- Supporting APC-free models based on collaborative funding by academic institutions (e.g. library consortia, voluntary memberships, crowd-funding, Subscribe to Open) and, in particular, not-for-profit publishing infrastructures.
- Operating its own Open Access publishing services.
- Playing a major role in funding preprint servers such as arXiv and ChemRXiv.
- Participating in the funding of Open Access infrastructures through its own contributions and through by organising consortia.
- Participating in national and international committees and projects to promote the transition to Open Access, e.g. in the Leibniz Association and the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany.
- Publishing digital reproductions of public domain works from its collection with an appropriate notice or the CC0 license.
- Using literature acquisition funds not only to build its collection, but also to shape the transition to Open Access.
- Considering the resources needed for its own acquisitions and for national Open Access strategies as an information budget and treating them as an integrated item.
- Making its own indexing data and research information available for re-use under CC0, in line with the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information.
- Coordinating its Open Access activities within the Open Science Competence Area and developing them further in an Open Science Strategy.