Open Access: Information crisis … an opportunity for providing information?

Abstract

Since the »Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities« was signed by numerous significant scientific organizations in 2003, Open Access – i.e. making publicly funded journal articles available for the public – has received a great deal of press attention and has begun to reach German scientists, as well. But still experiences are missing with electronic publishing in general and more specifically with Open-Access publishing. In this article we provide a brief overview of some important milestones in the Open-Access movement, before discussing the two main strategies of the Open-Access provision: publishing in an Open-Access journal (the so called »gold route«) or self-archiving articles in an open-access repository, possibly in parallel with or after publication in a conventional journal (the so called »green route«). The examples we are drawing on indicate that the process of making (social) sciences a public good is only getting started.