Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.
"Academic literature should be freely available: developing countries need access; part time ... thinkers ... journalists and the public can benefit; ... you’ve already paid for much of this stuff with your taxes ... important new ideas from humanity"
Berlin Academic – so heißt der neue Wissenschaftsverlag, dessen Gründung der Berlin Verlag heute bekannt gibt.
Auf einer neu errichteten Online-Plattform veröffentlicht Berlin Academic sein Programm nach Open-Access-Prinzipien und unter Creative-Commons-Lizenzen. Gleichzeitig werden sämtliche Titel über Print on Demand sowie in verschiedenen E-Book-Formaten vertrieben.
Leading academics in fields as diverse as biology, computer science, and law have spoken out and taken action for “open access” which includes novel publishing models that do not set up barriers to access, models where neither Wiley nor Elsevier nor e
OAPEN is a project in Open Access publishing for humanities and social sciences monographs. The consortium of University-based academic publishers who make up OAPEN believe that the time is ripe to bring the successes of scientific Open Access publishing to the humanities and social sciences.
"[T]he key point is that we need to take back our publications from the market-based economy, and to reorient scholarly communication within the gift economy that best enables our work to thrive."
R. Ball. Information zwischen Kultur und Marktwirtschaft, Proceedings des 9. Internationalen Symposiums für Informationswissenschaft, Volume 42 von Schriften zur Informationswissenschaft, Seite 413-432. Hochschulverband für Informationswissenschaft, (2004)