Good news on open access publication from De Gruyter

Press Release

2010 sees the launch of the series “Topoi. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World”

It is a pilot project for a combination of Open Access with publisher supervision

Berlin, 23rd June 2009

From 2010 onwards de Gruyter will be publishing the series “Topoi. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World”. It will encompass all the disciplines of Ancient Studies, from prehistory and early history through classical archaeology to antique philosophy, epistemology and theology. The series will be edited by the Excellence Cluster Topoi, with the prospect of the editorship being transferred to the projected Berlin College for Ancient Studies.

As well as being published in book form, selected titles from the series will also be available for open access as eBooks on the www.reference-global.com website. Dr Sabine Vogt, de Gruyter’s Senior Editor Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies has announced that “Our first joint pilot project for simultaneous publication in print and open access will be the volume Babylon – Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident (‘Babylon – Knowledge Culture East and West’)”.

Since April 2009. de Gruyter Publishing has been offering an over-arching unified open access model with its de Gruyter Open Library; Topoi provides a first opportunity to apply this model to the humanities. Dr. Sven Fund, de Gruyter’s Managing Director, is confident that “The publishing model used for the Topoi series shows that de Gruyter is adapting to the changing needs and interests of authors, customers and business partners.” He continues. “With this cooperation agreement for the Topoi series we are able for the first time to do exactly what academic sponsoring institutions – including the German Research Foundation – have been demanding on an international level, namely to provide free access to research funded by the tax-payer.

The Series “Topoi. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World” presents research findings from the Excellence Cluster Topoi, a joint undertaking of the Free University of Berlin and the Berlin Humboldt University. Partners in the enterprise are the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German Archaeological Institute, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The Topoi Excellence Cluster is engaged in the institutional preparations for the foundation of a Berlin College for Ancient Studies, that will provide a common institutional basis for leading-edge research in all the disciplines connected with Ancient Studies.

Contact
Ulrike Lippe
Public Relations
Telephone 030-260 05 153
ulrike.lippe@degruyter.com

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