Harvard to go open access – with echos in Germany

When Harvard Librarian Robert Darnton announced in February 2008 that his prestigious institution is going ‚open access‘ with most of its scolarly publications, this has caused echos and scepticism in Germany where science publishers still either tend to fight open access altogether or consider it ’no threat anymore‘ to their business interests.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he is also asked if he considered books (as printed on paper) an ‚endangered species‘. He states that the book, as a variant of the ‚codex‘ is „just too good to be easily bypassed by a computer“. So his next book will be published in the old traditional format – but with an added digital version „which will be much bigger and more complex“.