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• bloxberg becomes the first Association for the Advancement of Science and Blockchain e.V.

  Protaras, Cyprus – October 26-27, 2022 – the bloxberg project becomes the first Association for the Advancement of Science and Blockchain

  The fifth bloxberg summit took place as a hybrid conference in Protaras, Cyprus, from October 26-27. This time the annual Consortium meeting was organized for the fifth time in a row by the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) in collaboration with the University of Nicosia, one of the bloxberg founders. The meeting was hosted at the Sunrise Pearl Hotel by the University of Nicosia. Twenty-two institutions took part in this year's summit. Next to the sessions on member activities, bloxberg projects, and working group updates, a significant change took place regarding bloxberg's legal status.

   

  What started as a project becomes the first Association for the Advancement of Science and Blockchain

  Originally, bloxberg started as a project in 2019 with eleven research organizations from ten different countries. With the groundbreaking decision made at the last summit in London, the bloxberg consortium agreed on founding the bloxberg Association for the Advancement of Science and Blockchain e.V. under German legislation. At this bloxberg summit, that decision was finalized.
  The Association has been established with an in-person signing ceremony by 13 founding members with eleven research organizations and two individual members.
  The foundational document has been signed by the following research organizations: Max Planck Society, Faculty of Organizational Sciences at University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organization and Informatics at the University of Zagreb, University College London (UCL), IT University of Copenhagen, University of Geneva, University of Kassel, University of Nicosia, Westfälische Hochschule University of Applied Sciences, Wrocław University of Science and Technology and Zhejiang University.

  Soulla Louca, Professor at the University of Nicosia and founding member of the bloxberg project and Association:

  “I feel honored that our University has organized this far-reaching fifth summit for bloxberg. The University of Nicosia is part of bloxberg from the beginning, and I am very happy about the further development of this wonderful initiative. We are looking forward to continue our collaboration with this vibrant, global academic community.”

  Roman Beck, Professor at the IT University Copenhagen and founding member of the bloxberg project and Association:
   "bloxberg is an amazing project that now reached its next milestone. What started with eleven research institutes in 2019 became the biggest proof of authority DLT system with over 50 universities from around the world, creating a unique 'blockchain for science' decentralized infrastructure. With the incorporation as Association according to German law, bloxberg has reached its next level, which allows the network to grow and provide more services for science in the future."

  Tomaso Aste, Professor at University College London:
  “The fact that bloxberg was initiated in a Bavarian castle during a snowstorm makes it already legendary. With bloxberg, we are laying down the backbone for robust recording of scientific activity through a dedicated blockchain infrastructure. This will help research, academia, and society at large. I am honored to be one of the founding members and to serve on the bloxberg executive board.”

  Sandra Vengadasala, bloxberg initiator and deputy manager of the Max Planck Digital Library:
  “In 2019, we started with a small consortium with the intention to do a blockchain project together. Three years later, we are the largest Proof of Authority network in the world, with over 50 research institutions as node validators! Therefore, the transformation from a consortium to a legal Association marks a new era for bloxberg. Let's be excited to see what will happen in the next three years!”

  
  The Association continues to grow

  bloxberg has been growing as a project for nearly five years and has over 50 members at the time.  With the status of an Association, all former consortium members can become Association members now by signing an Association membership. By joining the Association, institutions have the possibility to shape the future of bloxberg collectively.

  About bloxberg
  bloxberg's mission is to advance science with its own blockchain infrastructure and to enable society as a whole to secure data with the reputational proof of research organizations worldwide. It broadens the scientific landscape of regionally and nationally governed blockchain networks. This makes it the first globally maintained decentralized scientific network for scientists.  

  Dedicated to this mission, the bloxberg Association facilitates and accelerates the decentralized blockchain bloxberg and scientific applications running on top of it. The excellent reputation of the participating research organizations encourages scientists worldwide to utilize the bloxberg network and the applications built on top of the infrastructure.

  bloxberg

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  About the Max Planck Society
  The Max Planck Society conducts basic research in the natural sciences, life science, and humanities. The 86 Max Planck Institutes and 17 Max Planck Centers internationally focus on innovative research fields and address forward-looking scientific questions. The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is a central unit of the Max Planck Society that supports scientists with a broad portfolio of services in the fields of information provision, publication support, and research data management. MPDL is a founding member of the bloxberg blockchain and represents the Max Planck Society within the consortium.

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• Fourth bloxberg Summit 2022

  London, UK – May 3-4, 2022 – the fourth bloxberg summit takes place with major changes regarding the research network’s future direction.

  The fourth bloxberg summit took place as a hybrid conference in London from May 3-4, 2022, at University College London (UCL). The bloxberg summit is the annual meeting of the bloxberg consortium, organized for the fourth time in a row by the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) and this time in cooperation with UCL, one of the founding members of bloxberg. The meeting was hosted by UCL at the LABS workspace at 90 High Holborn building.

  More than 25 research organizations participated in the summit to decide on several proposals regarding the future development of the bloxberg network.
  With the first vote, the consortium made a groundbreaking decision, introducing a significant and forward-looking change for the future of the network: the "bloxberg Association for the Advancement of Blockchain in Science" is going to be founded under German legislation this year. Refining bloxberg's governance model followed this proposal. In the third decision, the consortium agreed to introduce tokenomics to bloxberg to ensure sustainable funding of the infrastructure. Finally, the consortium members supported a technical proposal to move from a monolithic to a modular architecture with the current bloxberg infrastructure as Layer1.

   Friederike Kleinfercher, bloxberg Initiator and Deputy Manager Max Planck Digital Library:
   "I am really thrilled about the vivid bloxberg consortium. Again, the current summit showed that bloxberg is driven by academic enthusiasts who see the potential of blockchain in science, which resulted in groundbreaking decisions at the bloxberg summit 2022. The bloxberg association and the introduction of a sustainable tokenomics will take the project to a new level, enabling bloxberg to evolve and expand as the scientific blockchain infrastructure worldwide ".

  Arshdeep Bahga, Georgia Tech alumni and founding member of the bloxberg network:
  "bloxberg is a consortium blockchain network made by researchers for researchers. Over 50 universities from all over the world have come together to build the largest consortium proof-of-authority blockchain network for scientific applications. bloxberg will power a wide range of decentralized web3 applications for research and academic use cases. "

  Prof Maria Frahm-Arp, Executive Director of the Library and Information Centre at the University of Johannesburg:
   "bloxberg is a unique blockchain space where researchers can experiment and explore the endless possibilities blockchains open up on a large stable blockchain which is not a commercial space."

  Eventually, the Max Planck Society, represented by MPDL in the consortium, was again elected to the Iron Throne. "We need a decentralized place to digitize academic processes with low fees and quality control by the global academic community. With the Max Planck Society, we have a strong leader to reach the high arching goals of bloxberg: To connect universities, offer a censorship-free publication system, support good causes all over the world and be energy, cost, and time-efficient. We as the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center, are happy to support this project." said Philip Sandner, Head of the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center.

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  About bloxberg:

  The bloxberg infrastructure is a secure scientific global blockchain established by a consortium of researchers and research organizations to provide science with decentralized services worldwide. It broadens the scientific landscape of regionally and nationally governed blockchain networks and is the first globally maintained decentralized scientific network for scientists.
  The bloxberg consortium aims to foster collaboration among the global scientific community, empowering researchers with full, autonomous services that transcend institutional boundaries. The excellent reputation of the participating research organizations encourages scientists worldwide to utilize the bloxberg network and the applications built on top of the infrastructure.

  bloxberg
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  About the Max Planck Society

  The Max Planck Society conducts basic research in the natural sciences, life science, and humanities. The 86 Max Planck Institutes and 17 Max Planck Centers internationally focus on innovative research fields and address forward-looking scientific questions. The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is a central unit of the Max Planck Society that supports scientists with a broad portfolio of services in the fields of information provision, publication support, and research data management. MPDL is a founding member of the bloxberg blockchain and represents the Max Planck Society within the consortium.

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• Transformative agreement signed between the Microbiology Society and the Max Planck Digital Library

  The Microbiology Society and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) are pleased to announce a three-year transformative agreement starting in 2022. The Publish and Read model will enable researchers of 86 Max Planck Institutes in Germany to publish any article accepted for publication in the journals of the Society open access, without having to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs). Through the agreement, MPDL will cover costs of open access publishing of articles in both fully open access and hybrid journals, allowing scientists to retain copyright and secure the broadest possible readership for their work.

  Ralf Schimmer, Head of Information at MPDL, said: “Showing a clear commitment to an open, transparent, and sustainable scholarly communication environment, the Microbiology Society is one of the pioneers in the transition of paywall-based scholarly publishing to open access. We are delighted to enter into this agreement, marking a further step in the Max Planck Society’s strategy to enable open dissemination of research, in line with the principles of the OA2020 Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access”

  Peter Cotgreave, Chief Executive of the Microbiology Society: “Our focus at the Society has always been publishing for the community. As a small publishing society, we are delighted to work with the Max Planck Digital Library to help increase the amount of microbiology papers that we publish OA in our journals, to enable researchers a simple and cost-effective means to publish compliantly, and to improve societal access to – and therefore benefit of – the science we publish.”

  The agreement marks a significant milestone in the Microbiology Society’s transformation strategy. The number of institutions worldwide under the Society’s Publish and Read agreements has more than doubled year on year since 2020, paving the way towards an Open Access future.

  Member institutions (affiliated authors can check their availability here) are offered:

  • Unlimited Open Access: any article published in Society journals where the corresponding author is from a Publish and Read institution will be Open Access by default.
  • Unlimited usage: any user associated with a Publish and Read institution can access the entire archive of Society content, back to 1947, for reading and for text and data mining.

  The Publish and Read agreement covers unlimited reading access and provides uncapped publishing rights without author-facing charges across all the Society’s six journals including hybrid title Microbiology, Journal of General Virology, Journal of Medical Microbiology, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, and fully OA titles Access Microbiology, Microbial Genomics.

   

  ABOUT THE MAX PLANCK SOCIETY

  The Max Planck Society is Germany's premier research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, over 20 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, placing it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are testimony of the outstanding research work conducted at Max Planck Institutes.

  The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is a central scientific service unit within the Max Planck Society dedicated to the strategic planning, development and operation of the digital infrastructures necessary for providing its institutes and their scholars and scientists with research information, support for web-based scholarly communication, research tools and research data management and software licensing.

   

  ABOUT THE MICROBIOLOGY SOCIETY

  The Microbiology Society is a membership charity for scientists interested in microbes, their effects and their practical uses. It is one of the largest microbiology societies in Europe with a worldwide membership based in universities, industry, hospitals, research institutes and schools.

  Our principal goal is to develop, expand and strengthen the networks available to our members so that they can generate new knowledge about microbes and ensure that it is shared with other communities. The impacts from this will drive us towards a world in which the science of microbiology provides maximum benefit to society.

   

  Microbiology Society contact
  Jade Heyman, Journal Sales and Transformation Manager
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• Integration of Wolfram Blockchain Labs’ distributed ledger technology platform on the bloxberg blockchain

  CHAMPAIGN, Illinois | Munich, Germany, November 2020

  Wolfram Blockchain Labs (WBL) and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) announce the integration between WBL’s distributed ledger technology [DLT] platform and the bloxberg infrastructure. Through this collaboration initiated by Max Planck Digital Library, the bloxberg blockchain is now fully integrated into the Wolfram Language (WL) and programmatically available for analytics, application development, and computational exploration. WBL has developed a suite of functions in Wolfram Language that provide straightforward reading and writing capabilities for different blockchains. These functions also provide a powerful environment for users to create custom analytical tools. In order for these services to work seamlessly, WBL hosts nodes from Bitcoin, Ethereum, ARK, and bloxberg in their high-performance cluster. This allows direct connections to blockchain nodes and a smooth integration with the Wolfram Language, for use either on the desktop (Mathematica) or cloud (Wolfram Cloud).

  With this integration, approximately 15,000 Max Planck researchers can leverage bloxberg to confirm the certification of research data all within the Wolfram Language computational notebook interface, by accessing the new functionality, which is available in e.g. Mathematica. It offers the possibility to leave an immutable fingerprint of scientists’ data on the bloxberg blockchain and to analyze the data on the blockchain. The digital fingerprint is publicly available and verifiable and proofs the existence of the verified data at the given time.

  Citing Wolfram's proven history of innovative solutions built into the Wolfram Language, division manager Sandra Vengadasalam noted that, "by enabling certification and verification directly from within Mathematica, provenance and the existence of research data can be guaranteed via the bloxberg blockchain. The functionality is fully and seamlessly integrated into the research workflow, adding to the researchers’ ability to protect their intellectual property, ensure data integrity and data consistency, by using the enhanced functions provided in the Wolfram Language"

  Initially introduced during the 2020 bloxberg Virtual Summit, Johan Veerman, CTO of Wolfram Blockchain Labs, added, "We are committed to keep on building tools to help the scientific community, therefore we were thrilled to integrate bloxberg with our technology ecosystem”

  The Max Planck Digital Library and Wolfram Blockchain Labs anticipate broad usage of these Wolfram Language tools across members of the bloxberg consortium and the general scientific community.

  The bloxberg blockchain is a sustainable global blockchain for science, run by a consortium of currently 50 leading research institutions, and aims to provide the benefits of blockchain technology and blockchain-enabled services to researchers around the globe. bloxberg was initiated by the MPG. 

   

  ABOUT WOLFRAM BLOCKCHAIN LABS

  Wolfram Blockchain Labs provides distributed ledger technology ecosystems with the tools necessary to assist in the development of a wide variety of smart, contract-based applications. Wolfram Blockchain Labs is the DLT-focused subsidiary of Wolfram Research, Inc., the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language. Wolfram is the leader in developing technology and tools that inject sophisticated computational intelligence into everything.

  ABOUT MAX PLANCK SOCIETY

  The Max Planck Society conducts basic research in the natural sciences, life science, and humanities. The 86 Max Planck Institutes and 17 Max Planck Centers internationally focus on research fields that are innovative and address forward-looking scientific questions. The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is a central unit of the Max Planck Society that supports scientists with a broad portfolio of services in the fields of information provision, publication support and research data management.  With its Digital Labs department, MPDL ensures a constant pipeline of new technologies to provide innovative and sustainable services and tools for all Max Planck researchers.

• German institutions to benefit from first Transformative Agreement for Nature

  Landmark agreement between Springer Nature and Max Planck Digital Library creates a route to open access for prestigious Nature research journals

  Berlin | Munich | London, October 20, 2020

  Springer Nature and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) have agreed an approach that will deliver the first ever transformative agreement (TA) for Nature and Nature-branded journals. Building on the nationwide Projekt DEAL agreement concluded last January for Springer Nature journals, the commercial framework agreed with MPDL will now be offered to German institutions, in time for a January 2021 start.

  The transformative agreement, which will run for four years, enables authors affiliated with participating institutions to publish their research articles accepted for publication in Nature and Nature-branded research journals immediately open access at no cost to them. Participating institutions will also gain read access to the complete Nature portfolio, including Nature Review titles and all forthcoming Nature-branded journals.

  The parties, who have collaborated since the first iterations of transformative agreements (Springer Compact) on ever more impactful agreements to transition, have agreed this framework in the joint knowledge that TAs are the fastest pathway to transition to open access. With the vast majority of authors taking advantage of the open publication services secured for them with TA, Springer Nature’s existing transformative agreements, with author take up reaching over 90%, play a crucial role in supporting countries in making the research they have funded immediately and openly accessible to all.

  The Springer Nature - DEAL agreement signed last January was the world’s largest by volume to date and is expected to enable open publication of around 13,000 German research articles a year. The volume of OA articles achieved with transformative agreements, combined with the fact that OA articles are downloaded on average four times more than non-OA articles and cited 1.6 times more, means even greater reach and impact for German researchers and German-funded research.

  The Nature framework is based on a tiered price structure; in line with current subscription expenditure levels and taking into account the vastly different holdings and equally different publishing outputs of each participating institution. The terms provide for:

  • Open access publishing of all research articles accepted for publication in Nature and Nature research journals by affiliated authors
  • Comprehensive reading access to all Nature subscription titles, including Nature Review titles
  • Reading access to all new future Nature titles and OA publishing in new launches
  • Reallocation of the vast proportion of reading fees into support for open access publishing based on a cost of €9,500 per article

   

  Frank Vrancken Peeters, Chief Executive of Springer Nature, said: “We are delighted that, following our agreement earlier this year with Projekt DEAL, we have been able to reach such a groundbreaking moment with the Max Planck Digital Library, a valued partner in our transition to open access. This transformative agreement will enable hundreds of authors across Germany to publish their research in Nature knowing that it will be open and accessible to all from the moment of publication.

  “Publishing far fewer articles compared with the number of submissions they evaluate, with hundreds of dedicated in-house professional editors personally guiding authors through the peer review process, and providing news, information and context on the major scientific stories of the day, Nature and the Nature-branded research journals are unlike any other journals. Finding such a realistic transitional model with MPDL marks an exciting development in the history of our flagship journal.”

  Prof. Klaus Blaum, Vice President of the Max Planck Society’s Scientific Council for Chemistry, Physics and Technology, commented: “Having the opportunity to publish original research articles openly in such a highly selective and reputable journal as Nature will be an enormous opportunity for scientists in Germany, but an even greater benefit for researchers everywhere who will be able to learn from and build on their findings, accelerating the very process of the advancement of science.”

  Ralf Schimmer, Head of Information at the Max Planck Digital Library, commented: “We are extremely proud of having reached agreement on a realistic approach for transitioning high profile journals like Nature to open access that confirms the founding principle of the Open Access 2020 Initiative. By restructuring the financial streams around scholarly publishing, we can liberate journals from subscription-based paywalls for the benefit of science and society.”

  
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  About Springer Nature and Nature

  With around 600 fully OA journals and the option to publish OA in 2200 more, Springer Nature publishes the world's most comprehensive open access (OA) portfolio, accounting for 20% of all immediate OA articles published globally, and is the largest publisher of OA primary research.

  Over 120 people work on Nature alone, which increases to more than 360 when the Nature branded research journals are included.  Over 280 work on primary research content including 193 dedicated professional in-house editors, most with PhDs, who personally guide and assist authors through the peer review and revision process, working with them to ensure their final manuscript is the best it can possibly be. 

  Nature and the Nature branded research journal editors spend over 60% of the time they invest in assessing manuscripts on content that is not published and with only 8% of submissions published the cost per published article is driven as much by what is not published as by what is. Papers published in Nature and the Nature-branded research journals are on average cited around 12 times more and downloaded by institutional users around 34 times more than papers in typical journals.

  Nature also publishes informative, accessible content beyond primary research e.g. news, features, podcasts, specialist reports etc - all of which requires considerable investment. The resulting average cost per published article is therefore much higher than for less selective journals.

  
  About OA2020

  OA2020 is a global initiative of researchers, libraries, institutions and organizations committed to accelerating the transition of scholarly communication to universal open access by transforming today’s scholarly journals, currently locked behind paywalls, to open publication models.

  
  About the Max Planck Society

  The Max Planck Society is Germany's most successful research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 20 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are proof of the outstanding research work conducted at Max Planck Institutes – and many of those articles are among the most-cited publications.

  The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is a central scientific service unit within the Max Planck Society dedicated to the strategic planning, development and operation of the digital infrastructures necessary for providing its institutes and their scholars and scientists with research information, support for web-based scholarly communication, research tools and research data management and software licensing.

• Max Planck Society discontinues agreement with Elsevier; stands firm with Projekt DEAL negotiations

  The President and scientific council members of the Max Planck Society (MPS), one of the world’s largest research performing organizations, counting 14,000 scientists who publish 12K new research articles a year—around 1500 of which in Elsevier journals, have mandated the Max Planck Digital Library to discontinue their Elsevier subscription when the current agreement expires on December 31, 2018. With this move the Society joins nearly 200 universities and research institutions in Germany who have already cancelled their individual agreements with Elsevier in the course of 2016 and 2017 and affirmed their support of the national licensing framework Projekt DEAL, led by the German Rector’s Conference.

  In response to the untenably increasing cost of access to scholarly journals and, more importantly, the stifling effect of the antiquated paywall system on the research process, Projekt DEAL was established to negotiate nationwide transformative agreements as a means to transition from the current subscription system to one based on open access publishing models that enable complete and immediate access to the latest research for scholars and citizens alike, free of cost or other barriers. “DEAL is fully in line with the objectives of the OA2020 Initiative, which is strongly supported by the Max Planck Society,’ emphasized MPS President Martin Stratmann.

  The transformative agreement that the DEAL negotiators propose to the major academic publishers is a “publish and read” model covering open access publication of all scholarly articles by authors affiliated with German institutions and, at the same time, grant reading access for German institutions to the publisher’s entire portfolio of electronic journals still behind paywalls.

  As no sustainable offer according these fundamental criteria has been forthcoming from the publisher, negotiations with Elsevier were suspended last July. Researchers at the 200 institutions supporting the DEAL negotiations have consequently foregone access to the Elsevier platform and are broadly making use of alternative routes for their research needs. The Max Planck Digital Library has already set in place mechanisms to address the content needs of its researchers when Elsevier shuts off access at the beginning of January.

  “The system of scholarly publishing today is a relic of the print era, and we want to activate a real paradigm shift in order to finally utilize the opportunities of the digital age”, says Gerard Meijer, director at Max Planck Society’s Fritz Haber Institute and a member of the DEAL negotiation team. In a strong show of support for the DEAL negotiations, 13 prominent Max Planck Society scientists resigned from their positions as editors and members of the editorial and advisory boards of Elsevier journals in 2017.

  “Transformative agreements are one of the primary strategies for driving large scale transition of scholarly publishing to open access and are increasingly being adopted by the scores of international supporters of our global Open Access 2020 Initiative”, says Ralf Schimmer, Deputy General Manager of the Max Planck Digital Library. ”As both producers and consumers of the research articles circulated through their journal platforms, we have the leverage to demand a system that meets the needs of our researchers, and by adopting these transformative agreements, we will be able to achieve our Society’s goal of publishing the vast majority of our researchers’ articles open access in a matter of a few short years. We have already accomplished such deals with some of the most relevant publishers to Max Planck researchers, such as Springer Nature, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics Publishing. Further publishers will follow in 2019.”

• Aligning strategies to enable Open Access

  A strong signal to the publishers from the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference

  The 14th Berlin Open Access Conference, hosted by the Max Planck Society and organized by the Max Planck Digital Library on behalf of the Open Access 2020 Initiative (oa2020.org), has just come to an end after two intense days with 170 participants from 37 countries around the world discussing where the research organizations and their library consortia stand in their negotiations with scholarly publishers in transitioning scholarly publishing to open access. The participants represented research performing and research funding organizations, libraries and government, associations of researchers and other umbrella organizations, many of them holding high-level positions at their organizations. In his welcoming address, Max Planck Society President Martin Stratmann captured the spirit of the meeting when he stated: 'Open Access is the responsibility of all of us'.

  

  The conference brought to light strong consensus and alignment among the diverse international communities represented around the necessity of stepping up efforts to move away from the subscription-based system of scholarly publishing to open access-based business models. A major focus was placed on transformative agreements (eg “read and publish”), which were identified as perhaps the most viable instrument at the moment to accelerate the transition to open access. As it became clear from statements made by representatives from Japan, the United States, South Africa and others, that readiness to adopt this approach is now extending beyond Europe, where it originated, and is currently being adopted in several countries; in particular, this was emphasized in a bold statement from China, the nation with the largest share of research publications.

  After aligning on the goals and strategies during the first day of the conference, the CEOs of the three largest publishers of scholarly journals, Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, and Springer Nature, were invited by the President of the Max Planck Society, Martin Stratmann, to discuss the global demand for transformative agreements on the second day. The message conveyed to the publishers was that the global research communities are committed to complete and immediate open access, to retaining author copyrights and to negotiating transformative agreements that are temporary, transitional, and cost-neutral as a means to shift to full open access within just a few years with the expectation that cost savings in scholarly communication will follow as market forces take hold. The publishers were called upon to move towards complete and immediate open access according to these principles.

  It also came out that there is a strong alignment between the approaches taken by OA2020, Plan S, the Jussieu Call and other approaches dedicated to drive more open access into the system of scholarly communication.

  Further reports will soon appear on the homepage of the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference:
  https://oa2020.org/b14-conference/

  Read more in the Nature News

   

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• The Max Planck Society buys the entire Springer Book Archives

  One of Germany’s leading research organizations secures access to 110,000 books from almost 170 years of publishing history for its researchers

  The Max Planck Society, a highly reputed research institution, has bought the entire Springer Book Archives (SBA) consisting of 110,000 individual titles. The purchase gives staff in 82 Max Planck institutes in Germany direct online access to the retro-digitized books via the SpringerLink platform (link.springer.com).
  The Springer Book Archives contain the digital copies of nearly all the books published by Springer from 1842, when the publishing house was founded, up to and including 2004. The works are divided into 11 collections in English (around 56,000 titles) and five in German (around 54,000 titles). Licenses are available for each of these individual packages. The Springer Book Archives give today’s researchers access to key academic work from the past two centuries, and researchers can use these e-books on a wide variety of electronic devices.

  The Springer Book Archives contain around 50 different imprints, although scientific works published by Springer Verlag account for the majority of publications. In addition, there are also titles by the longstanding engineering publisher Vieweg (now SpringerVieweg), the economics book portfolio Gabler (now SpringerGabler), the U.S. IT publisher Apress, and the U.S. science publisher Copernicus.
  “The Springer Book Archives clearly demonstrate once again that today’s scientists stand on the shoulders of giants. Our digitized titles include publications by prestigious researchers and a number of Nobel laureates,” commented Focko van Berckelaer, Vice President Library Sales, Springer. “All these works have been out of print for a long time and are now available again online in the Springer Book Archives. I am delighted that the researchers and post-doctorate students at the Max Planck Institutes now access this basic knowledge.”
  “The Springer Book Archives books had only been available for a short time before the Max Planck institutes signaled their interest in acquiring these titles,” explained Dr Ralf Schimmer, head of Scientific Information Provision at the Max Planck Digital Library. “We would like to congratulate Springer on implementing this fantastic retro-digitization project, and we are pleased to be able to make this historical body of work available to researchers in the Max Planck Society in today’s digital working environment.”
  Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) is a leading global scientific, technical and medical publisher, providing researchers in academia, scientific institutions and corporate R&D departments with quality content via innovative information products and services. Springer is also a trusted local-language publisher in Europe – especially in Germany and the Netherlands – primarily for physicians and professionals working in healthcare and road safety education. Springer published roughly 2,200 English-language journals and more than 8,000 new books in 2012, and the group is home to the world’s largest STM eBook collection, as well as the most comprehensive portfolio of open access journals. In 2012, Springer Science+Business Media S.A. generated sales of approximately EUR 981 million. The group employs more than 7,000 individuals across the globe.

  
  Contact: Renate Bayaz| Springer | Tel.: +49-6221-487-8531| E-Mail: renate.bayaz@springer.com

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• The Max Planck Society and De Gruyter Sign Agreement for Open Access Publishing

  Berlin/Munich, 24 January 2013 – The Max Planck Society and the academic publishing house De Gruyter have signed a groundbreaking agreement to cooperate in the publication of Open Access books.

  The agreement covers texts intended for publication by scholars at the more than 80 individ- ual Max Planck institutes working around the world today. It encompass the full range of disciplines in which the Max Planck Society is active, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and humani- ties, and applies to both monographs and anthologies.

  “Our collaboration with De Gruyter will enable us to offer our scholars a unified platform – both from a legal and an organizational perspective – for publishing books in Open Access,” explains Ralf Schimmer, Director of the Department of Scientific Information Provision at the Max Planck Digital Library. “In this way, we’re responding to an increasing number of requests from the Max Planck institutes, and are extending the support we give for Open Access publishing from journal articles to the arena of books.”

  De Gruyter is providing the Max Planck Society an attractive opportunity to disseminate its content to the broadest possible audience. Alongside free, global access to content at De Gruyter Online (www.degruyter.com), print versions will also be released.

  “Our agreement with the Max Planck Society underscores that De Gruyter’s Open Access model is a groundbreaking form of academic publishing,” says Anke Beck, Vice President of Publishing at De Gruyter. “Publications from the internationally renowned institutes of the Max Planck Society will enrich our program with the highest quality content across all fields of research.”

  Already in the past several years De Gruyter has successfully published a number of Open Access books in collaboration with a variety of ongoing research projects, including with the Berlin College of Antiquities’ Cluster of Excellence project The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations (TOPOI) and with the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.

  Contact: UlrikeLippe, PublicRelationsManager, Tel. +49(0)30-26005 153

  Contact: Tina Planck, MaxPlanckDigitalLibrary, Tel. +49(0)89-909311249

   

   

  De Gruyter: The academic publishing house De Gruyter can look back on a history spanning over 260 years. The Berlin-based group of companies releases over 850 new titles each year in the fields of medicine,thehumanities, naturalsciences,andlaw,inaddition tomorethan 600journalsanddigital mediapublications.

   

  The Max Planck Society: The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is an independent, non-profit research organization. It primarily funds research at its own institutions, which conduct basic research in the natural, biological, and social sciences, as well as in the humanities.

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• Max Planck Digital Library introduces new software

   

  imeji creates citable research assets from scientific media data like photographs, microscope im-ages or graphics. The Max Planck Digital Library has recently released a first version of this soft-ware for research institutions or other interested parties. As imeji is an open source project, it is free of charge and can be reused by everybody.

  The publication and reusability of scientific media data are the focus of this application. imeji enables an easy-to-use upload of images, the description of data with freely definable parameters and the interlinking of data. Information can be handled with a non- restrictive metadata schema definition, as simple as de-sired or as complex as needed. Large collections can be organized in different albums to focus special items of interest or to ensure the citability for publications. Albums can be shared among users to enable collaboration for creating and enriching sets of images.
  The development is distributed among the imeji-community, an open software developer partnership, which ensures the sustainability of the imeji software and enables further stable development. The com-munity consists, among others, of the Institute of Art and Visual History of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Max Planck Digital Library and Konrad Zuse Internet Archive of Freie Universität Berlin.

  Contact:

  imeji Community
  kleinfercher@mpdl.mpg.de
  imeji-community@gwdg.de
  http://imeji.org/

  Dr. Frank Sander
  Head Max Planck Digital Library
  sander@mpdl.mpg.de
  www.mpdl.mpg.de

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