Financing our infrastructure
Infrastructures and models
The University Library participates in numerous projects aimed at promoting Open Access in scholarship.
Hosting and operating the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA)
MPRA stands for the Munich Personal RePEC Archive, a preprint platform for scholarly publications in the field of economics. The platform was launched in 2006 and since then has been hosted by the University Library of the LMU. The MPRA's main purpose is the export to enable the transfer of bibliographical metadata from publications to the RePEc network.
Plattform Munich Personal RePEc Archive
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
The DOAJ is an index of electronic journals, with full texts freely available on the internet according to the principles of Open Access. The prerequisite for admission to the DOAJ is the existence of a quality assurance procedure such as peer review. Indexing and usage are free of charge. Financial support is provided by sponsors (40%) and DOAJ members through the DOAJ Membership scheme (60%). The LMU participates through the Bayern-Konsortium.
Directory of Open Access Journals platform
Open Library Economics (OLEcon)
By participating in the international consortium “Open Library Economics: E-Journals”, the University Library supports free use and publishing in the following journals in 2024:
- German Journal of Agricultural Economics (GJAE)
- European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies (EJEEP)
- Junior Management Science (JUMS)
Open Library of Humanities (OLH)
The Open Library of Humanities is a non-profit open access publishing house for the humanities and social sciences. It is not funded by publication fees (APCs) but through consortium-based payments from participating libraries and institutions throughout the world. The University Library of the LMU Munich also participates in the OLH.
About the Open-Access-Modell without APC
Open Access rights with alliance and national licences
The alliance and national licences model with open access components combines the licensing of information resources with ensuring that the publications of individual institutions are made publicly available.
Both the alliance licences launched in 2011 and some national licences from 2009 onwards make provision for the secondary publication of commercially published works via the Green Path. The relevant conditions will usually be specified individually by the publishing houses.
Community-based Open Access funding
The University Library of the LMU Munich participates in a number of community-based Open Access projects in the e-book sector. These projects aim to create a stable community of participating libraries and research institutions willing to share the costs for the open access transformation of individual packages. The more institutions taking part in these projects, the greater the reduction of the costs for each individual institution.
transcript Open Library Politikwissenschaft
The „transcript Open Library Politikwissenschaft“ (political science) is a joint project of the publishing house transcript and the National Open Access Contact Point OA2020-DE, supported by the subject information service Pollux and organised by the Open Access service provider Knowledge Unlatched. [ ….] Publication on Gold Open Access is facilitated by means of a publication grant awarded to the author.
The University Library of the LMU participated in 2019 (20 titles), 2020 (22 titles), 2022 (22 titles), 2023 (22 titles). The Library will continue to support this model in 2024 (22 titles).
transcript OPEN library Politikwissenschaft project information (in German)
transcript Open Library Medienwissenschaft
The „transcript Open Library Medienwissenschaft“ (media studies) library consortium was established within the framework of a BMBF Open Access transformation project in cooperation with the SUB Göttingen and the subject information service for media, communication and film studies „adlr.link“. Its aim is to open up the media studies subject area published by the company transcript by using an Open Access (Diamond OA) transformation process free of charge to authors.
The University Library of the LMU is participating in this project in 2022 (13 titles), 2023 (13 titles) and 2024 (13 titels).
transcript OPEN library Medienwissenschaft project information (in German)
De Gruyter transformation packages
The publishing house de Gruyter offers a consortium and package-based Open Access model in cooperation with the SUB Göttingen. Up to now, the University Library of the LMU has supported the packages German Linguistics (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 with 9 titles each), German Literature (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 with 9 titles each) and History (2022, 2023, 2024 with 9 titles each). In 2020 the University Library is also participating in the Jewish Studies package via KU (8 titles).
From 2023-2025 the University Library supports the Open Access Consortium moderated by FID Antiquities for the de Gruyter book series Millennium Studies (approx. 5 titles per year).
These packages are being published in Diamond Open Access with no contribution to the publication costs required from the authors.
De Gruyter transformation packages information
Olms OA transformation
In cooperation with the SUB Göttingen, the humanities publisher Olms Verlag offers a consortium-based Open Access transformation package incurring no publication charges for the authors. The University Library funds this package in the field of History / Ancient History.
Knowledge Unlatched Focus Collection 2022 Climate Change
The Focus Collection Climate Change from the Open Access service provider Knowledge Unlatched offered the University Library the opportunity of supporting a subject-based Open Access package involving, in 2022, 20 titles emanating from various publishers and disciplines relating to climate change.
Knowledge Unlatched Focus Collection information
Verfassungsblog Membership Program (2022-2024)
With its sponsorship of the Verfassungsblog (a blog on constitutional law) the University Library of the LMU supports a quality-controlled research blog widely recognised by scholars within the law and political science community. While the blog articles themselves are published on Open Access independently of the funding scheme, the participating institutions contribute to the maintenance and development of the (technical) infrastructure of the blog. The Open Access service provider Knowledge Unlatched is responsible for the organisation.
Language Science Press (2021-2026)
Through Knowledge Unlatched the University Library is also able to support the cooperative funding model of the specialist linguistics publisher Language Science Press. This ensures the publication of 20 titles a year without the authors being required to contribute to the publication costs.
Language Science Press information
Open Access Crowdfunding by the FID
By participating since 2023 in the transformation package offered by the Fachinformationsdienst Erziehungswissenschaft und Bildungsforschung - FID (subject information service for educational science and research), the UB has elected to take part in a project involving the Open Access publication of 18 titles from various German publishing houses (e.g., Budrich, wbv, transcript, Klinkhardt) in the field of pedagogy and educational science.
The UB is continuing to support the open access crowdfunding of the FID Educational Science in 2024.
Information on the FID transformation packages (in German)
FID Recht - OA open access consortium series "Internet und Gesellschaft"
The University Library participates with funds in the OA consortium of the FID Recht, which aims to publish 10 book projects from the Mohr Siebeck series "Internet und Gesellschaft" in Open Access between 2024 and 2026.
