Bereitschaft zu Open Access in den Geisteswissenschaften

Abstract

This article provides the empirical basis for an assessment of the attitude of humanities journal editors towards Open Access. Within the framework of the German Open Library of Humanities project OLH-DE at the University of Konstanz, we conducted an online survey among 416 editors of German-language humanities journals. They were not only asked about their attitudes, fears and relevant aspects of Open Access in general, but were also informed about the OLH publishing model. The results show that the attitudes among editors towards Open Access are not as negative as often feared and that many concerns can be significantly mitigated by addressing them specifically when presenting the OLH. The loss of the print version remained a significant obstacle to Open Access, highlighting the need for “print on demand” Open Access publishing models. Overall, receiving information about the OLH went along with an increased willingness to undertake Open Access transformations among the editors of humanities journals compared to their interest in Open Access in general. This result underlines the relevance of Open Access projects such as OLH-DE: A gradual Open Access transformation among editors of humanities journals can only succeed by the means of targeted Open Access promotion.