Freie Universität Berlin joins Open Library of Humanties’ Library Partnership Subsidy

We are very pleased to announce that Freie Universität Berlin has joined the Open Library of Humanities’ Library Partnership Subsidy system. Freie Universität Berlin is a leading research university located in Berlin, Germany. The university is one of the 13 German universities being funded through the German government’s Excellence Strategy and is part of the only University Consortium of Excellence, the Berlin University Alliance formed by four Berlin Partners: Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

Freie Universität was founded in West Berlin in 1948 during the early Cold War period when students of the successor institution of Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, then located in the Soviet sector of the city, were facing persecution because of their political views. With international support, Freie Universität was established, allowing scholars to pursue their teaching and learning without political interference.

Freie Universität Berlin is consistently ranked among Germany’s top ten universities overall, with particular strengths in the arts and humanities followed by the social sciences. Among its alumni are five Nobel Prize winners and 17 winners of the Leibniz Prize. With women employed in 30 per cent of its professorships, the university is also at the forefront of German higher education institutions when it comes to gender representation.

The Open Library of Humanities is an academic-led, gold open-access publisher with no author-facing charges. With initial funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the platform covers its costs by payments from an international library consortium, rather than any kind of author fee.

“We’re very pleased to welcome Freie Universität Berlin on board,” said Paula Clemente Vega, OLH Marketing Officer. “The relevance of open access to academic publishing has never been more clear and it’s great to see that research institutions are uniting together and moving into this direction. Supporting scholar-led and non-APC open access initiatives such as the Open Library of Humanities is now more important than ever. With the help of Freie Universität Berlin – and our other member institutions – we will continue to expand our model for open access in the humanities so researchers irrespective of their institution and funding situation can also have the possibility to publish OA.”

Dr. Andreas Brandtner, Executive Director of the University Library, said: “Freie Universität Berlin has been active in supporting the idea of open access for many years. The University Library offers a number of open-access services and all our scholars are recommended to make digital full texts of their publications freely accessible, where possible. We are glad to further support and intensify the idea of open-access publishing by joining the Open Library of Humanities’ Library Partnership Subsidy Program.”

Link to Freie Universität Berlin press release: Freie Universität Berlin geht Bibliothekspartnerschaft mit "Open Library of Humanties" ein

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