OLH Welcomes Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL)

The Open Library of Humanities is pleased to welcome a new supporting institution: Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL). Founded in 1996 and based in Berlin, the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research is a humanities institute for literary studies in interdisciplinary contexts that draw from a cultural studies framework. Its methods also engage with the structural transformations within historical-hermeneutic subject areas that have taken place in recent decades. In contrast to the study of literature at universities, predominantly organized by nationality, the ZfL fosters a broad concept of literature. It uses interdisciplinary tools to fundamentally question the etiology of various literary concepts, their potential for the future, and the relationship between literature and other arts or cultural practices. While literature remains a primary object of investigation in all areas, the institute also opens up new epistemological fields, new modes of knowledge, and new sets of questions in other disciplines. As a relatively small, independent institute, the ZfL sees itself as a vital contributor to national and international research communities and as a critical observer of an ever-changing academic landscape.

With this partnership in place, the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research demonstrates its support of diamond open access. The Open Library of Humanities is collectively funded by its member libraries and wouldn't be able to operate without their generous support. Redirecting funds for the support of scholar-led diamond OA initiatives is vital for the survival of not-for-profit platforms such as OLH. It helps build an academic publishing ecosystem based on equity and on a vision of academic research as a global public good.

About OLH: The Open Library of Humanities is an award-winning, academic-led publisher of 34 diamond open access journals based at Birkbeck, University of London. With initial funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and subsequent support from Arcadia, a charitable fund, the platform covers its costs by payments from an international library consortium rather than any author fee. This funding mechanism enables equitable open access in the humanities disciplines, with charges neither to readers nor authors. 

Like what we do? Recommend us!

If you like the work that the Open Library of Humanities is doing, please recommend us to your institution. We cannot operate without our library members. Your support helps keep us open and accessible for all.