DFG Launches Cooperation with the OAPEN Foundation

Funded OA books available in the OAPEN Library from Spring onwards / Information event on 14 March 2023

At the beginning of this year, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) concluded a service level agreement for the use of the OAPEN Library as a repository for DFG-funded open access books. From Spring 2023 onwards, the library will contain monographs and anthologies funded through the Open Access Publication Funding programme and produced in connection with DFG research funding.

Furthermore, OA publications from funded research projects will be available that contain funding acknowledgements and have been reported by the academic publishers participating in the OAPEN Library. OAPEN will also provide access to metadata of publications in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) as discovery service. By consolidating funded book publications on a centralised basis, the DFG aims to improve the visibility, discoverability and long-term archiving of research results generated by its funding in order to promote transparency.

The OAPEN Library is a repository for open access monographs operated by the OAPEN Foundation and currently comprising 26,000 titles, approximately a quarter of which are in German. It is a non-commercial global infrastructure which draws on the joint support of libraries, academic publishers and research funders to provide an important service in terms of ensuring the visibility, discoverability and availability of OA books. University libraries use the metadata that is made openly available by the OAPEN Foundation for indexing purposes and to be able to provide OA monographs in their library catalogues, for example. Forschungszentrum Jülich supports the DFG in identifying publications and supplying metadata to the OAPEN Library. Not until Creative Commons licenses (such as CC BY 4.0) have been granted and detailed funding acknowledgement have been provided can publications be identified and collated in the OAPEN Library.

In order to provide further information on the future workflow and the possible reuse of and participation in the OAPEN Library, an online seminar will be offered for institutions receiving funding under the Open Access Publication Funding programme on 14 March 2023 (15-16h CET) with Niels Stern, Director of the OAPEN Foundation. See the link below to sign up for the event (for institutions receiving funding under the Open Access Publication Funding programme only).

Further information

Seminar sign up for funded institutions: http://www.dfg.de/lis/openaccess/en

OAPEN Library – Collection of book publications to have emerged from DFG funding: https://oapen.org/funders/2999323-dfg-german-research-foundation

Contact at the DFG Head Office: Michael Geuenich, Tel. +49 228 885-2009, michael.geuenich[@]dfg.de