18 September 2024

For some time now the Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB) has aimed to introduce and implement open access for its own services and offerings in order to promote more transparent and sustainable research practices and support academics in their work. Aside from digital editions, the digital humanities journal Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaften and the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association (MWW)’s APIS publishing platform, the HAB’s online repository is the next big step towards providing free access at the library to retro-digitised research literature, research data and, in the near future, primary scientific publications.

In this interview Dr Gudrun Schmidt, head of the Publications Department, and Birgit Kosmale, a long-term member of staff there, report on their work on the repository, the reasons the HAB chose to take these steps and the prospects for the new platform.

Kian Pontes Trabula (KT): Ms Schmidt, you have been head of the Publications Department since 2010. The department functions like a small institutional publisher, but what actually happens there?

Dr Gudrun Schmidt (GS): Our department deals with all the usual focuses of a publishing house: editing and proofreading, layout and image editing, as well as sales and marketing.
So if a book is to be published at the HAB, we offer the editors and authors all the basic services to ensure that their manuscript is published successfully.

KT: The library has been publishing printed books for 52 years and brings them to market through various distribution channels. What is the motivation for setting up an online repository?

GS: Our older publications are being retro-digitised and published on our platform via open access on what is called the ‘green route’. In the future, we also plan to put out our initial publications in a hybrid analogue/digital format that fulfils the requirements of open-access ‘golden route’ publishing. The online repository provides a place to publish both of these – something that had been missing until now.

Our decision to offer printed books in a digital format that is free of charge means we can meet the needs of our customers (academics and the general public) today and work together with funding institutions such as the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG), the ministries and the HAB as a whole.

KT: What were the various steps in the process of launching the HAB repository on 21 May 2024?

GS: Several years ago we began systematically scanning our older publications to create digital versions of them. It then took another two years or so to process these scans and to structure them for reading on the basis of their tables of contents. After this work was completed, we started contacting the copyright holders of the texts and images to get their consent for digital publication. This is an ongoing process, which Birgit Kosmale will talk about in more detail. At the same time, we began developing concepts for how to implement open-access publication step by step and to set out the agenda for the associated platform – the repository we now have. The technical aspect of the concept was realised in collaboration with an external service provider.
By the time we launched the repository, we were able to provide access to 40 digital publications – for which the rights of use had been cleared – as well as internal research data sets.

KT: Ms Kosmale, you have been working at the HAB since 2013 and have been busy obtaining consent for open-access publications since July 2023. What kind of a task is this and just how much work is involved?

Birgit Kosmale (BK): In January 2022 we started indexing the titles of all the volumes and articles in all publication series and journals, including all their editors, contributors and co-authors. Then, in July 2023, we contacted the first batch of editors and authors by email and post. They were asked for their consent for retro-digitisation and the associated image rights.
We initially focused our enquiries on in-house publications covering the period from 1972 to 1999. These publications are tricky because, despite intensive research, many of their authors can no longer be traced. Around 36 per cent of these people have already passed away; in such cases, we try to track down heirs and relatives – it’s real detective work.

As a team, we have developed a workflow that is constantly evolving. We work with three people at the same time in the Academic Cloud on address lists and forms. It’s a huge undertaking, especially since the search becomes more complicated as it goes on. When we hit a wall on any given platform, we have to rely on the help of editors and authors. We also contact their former workplaces, such as universities or libraries, in order to track them down. And as a last resort in particularly difficult cases, we also consult the ‘hive mind’ of the staff at the Herzog August Bibliothek. And this route has indeed provided us with some valuable pointers.

After a year of intensive research, this is what we have achieved: we have identified 2,467 authors, of whom we have written to approximately 1,200 so far. Of these, 696 people have given their consent to retro-digitisation. Considering the complexity and the considerable effort involved, this is already a huge success. This is what gives me the energy and tenacity to persevere with my research.

KT: That sounds like a Herculean task! So the work on the repository is an ongoing process?

BK: Exactly, it’s an ongoing process. As soon as we have cleared the rights for a series of publications (about ten), we can upload all the data that has been processed and structured.

At the same time, we are working on putting out new publications in open access (gold) and hybrid. In concrete terms, this means that in the future the digital version of a volume can appear in the repository at the same time as the print edition.

KT: Does this mean that all in-house publications make it onto the platform?

BK: As long as we have the rights for them, yes. This is something we are planning in several steps (depending on the original publication dates).

KT: Ms Schmidt, could you give a final overview of the repository?

GS: Over time, the platform will allow interested parties to access lots of publications from institutional publishers that have long been out of print. It is easy to search for them using basic bibliographic information (authors, titles, topics, keywords). These publications, in tandem with the research data, provide a good insight into the research that is conducted at the HAB.
And finally, the repository has created the technical conditions for publishing new publications in open access in the future.

KT: That is truly worth waiting for. Thank you so much!

Image: Open-access logo in front of a shelf of publications from the in-house publishers of the Herzog August Bibliothek.

PURL: http://diglib.hab.de/?link=194