Latest Press Releases
May 14 , 2013
Improving Metadata Access
De Gruyter Starts Cooperation with the Head Office of Germany's Common Library Network
De Gruyter has signed an agreement with the Head Office of the Common Library Network (GBV) for the supply of MARC bibliographic records. Effective immediately De Gruyter will be providing metadata for 13,200 e-books in the MARC 21 format to the GBV Head Office. These data will in turn be provided complete and up-to-date to all GBV-affiliated libraries.
"Fast and unrestricted access to metadata has always been a wish voiced by our library customers," says Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales at De Gruyter. "We are fulfilling this wish in full thanks to our partnership with the GBV."
The MARC 21 standard considerably improves the classification and identification of titles in library catalogs. In order to keep the data current, the records will be updated monthly.
May 8 , 2013
Securing the Future of Database Content
De Gruyter Now Using the CLOCKSS Archive
De Gruyter is pleased to announce that it is now archiving its 36 databases and 55 eBookPLUS at the CLOCKSS Archive. CLOCKSS is a US-based non-profit whose mission is to provide for the long-term digital archiving of academic publications. Partnership with CLOCKSS ensures that in the event of server failure and data loss, De Gruyter's content will remain globally available to the scientific community. The permanent backup of digital archives is particularly useful for libraries seeking to preserve their electronic collections.
"By archiving our digital content with CLOCKSS, we are fulfilling a wish frequently voiced by customers," says Sven Fund, Managing Director of De Gruyter. "We are glad to have found a first-class partner who will ensure that the valuable work of our authors and publishers remains accessible to all users long into the future."
CLOCKSS Executive Director Randy S. Kiefer adds: "The CLOCKSS Archive welcomes De Gruyter's decision to upload its databases and eBookPLUS to our storage systems. By archiving content at CLOCKSS, De Gruyter will guarantee that its valuable publications remain available now and in the future to all generations of researchers worldwide."
May 2 , 2013
De Gruyter Acquires the Publisher Ontos
High-Quality Additions to De Gruyter's Philosophy Portfolio
De Gruyter is proud to announce that it has acquired the German publisher Ontos, effective 1 May.
Ontos has a strong international orientation, publishing some 50 titles and three journals each year in the fields of philosophy and mathematical logic. The publishing house's backlist comprises some 300 publications, 90% of which contain English content. All books and journals are released in print as well as electronic form.
"This acquisition enhances both the quality and breadth of our philosophy portfolio," says Anke Beck, Vice President of Humanities Publishing at De Gruyter. "The 23 book series and three journals of international repute published by Ontos represent a superb addition to our existing portfolio, expanding it in the fields of logic, ontology, metaphysics, and analytical philosophy."
Dr. Rafael Hüntelmann, who founded Ontos in 2003, will continue to manage the publishing house's portfolio. All eBooks previously available at Ontos' website can now be obtained at De Gruyter Online. "We couldn't have found a better partner for the takeover of Ontos," says Dr. Rafael Hüntelmann.
For more information: http://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/601
April 15 , 2013
Unrestricted Backlist Access – De Gruyter Presents its New Open Access Model for E-dition Titles
With De Gruyter's new Open Access model, some 45,000 e-dition titles from the publishing house's backlist can be made freely accessible. For €1,500 or $2,100 customers can purchase an e-book in the same standard as a work produced normally through De Gruyter's e-dition program. The book is then made freely accessible at De Gruyter Online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.
This new Open Access offering is directed first and foremost at libraries and research institutes, and a discount is offered when multiple titles are purchased simultaneously. Yet individuals can also take advantage of this offer. Authors, for example, can choose to make their previously published works available as Open Access. The new Open Access model is available for all publications released in 2004 or earlier and which are not available in any "Best Of" packages.
"Providing an Open Access option for e-dition titles expands De Gruyter's existing Open Access offerings," says Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales at De Gruyter. "Library customers and authors can not only make new publications and current journal articles available as Open Access – now, they can also make archive titles freely accessible in digital format."
At the beginning of April De Gruyter began offering 100 selected titles from its e-dition program at the crowdfunding platform www.unglue.it, so that they can be made accessible worldwide as Open Access books.
April 8 , 2013
De Gruyter Releases The Language Situation in China, Volume 1, the First Title in its Cooperation with the Chinese Publisher Commercial Press
De Gruyter is proud to announce the release of the first book in its partnership with the Chinese publisher Commercial Press: The Language Situation in China, Volume1 documents for the first time in English the reports released since 2006 by the Chinese State Language Commission concerning language use in China. The 450-page work illuminates the country's language politics and planning at the national, regional, and local levels. The Commission's surveys, which are of key importance for the formulation of language policy, address new trends in language use within vari-ous social groups and in a variety of social domains, and major events concerning languages in main-land China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. A team of scholars in Europe supervised the develop-ment of the book as well as the selection and translation of the source material. The result is a publication of indispensable value for readers from the worlds of business, politics, and academia.
"We're pleased that the first result of our cooperation with Commercial Press addresses such im-portant material," says Anke Beck, Vice President of Publishing and head of the China Initiative at De Gruyter. "And we're working intensely on a series of comparably important titles. Commercial Press is one of the leading academic publishers in China, and we're delighted to have them as a partner."
The partnership, which was launched in the summer of 2012, foresees the intense exchange of academic content, rather mere licensing, which is the much more widespread form of cooperation. The partnership will also involve regular consultation and the initiation of joint projects.
The book will be presented to a broader public in this week in Beijing under the presence of academic representatives from the Chinese government.
April 2 , 2013
Achieving Open Access with Crowdfunding
De Gruyter to Cooperate with Unglue.it
Starting today, the academic publisher De Gruyter will be offering 100 titles from its e-dition series at the crowdfunding platform Unglue.it. Each individual title that raises 2,100 dollars at the site will be made available worldwide as open access content.
Unglue.it is an innovative service provider that is making ebooks free and universally accessible to libraries and book lovers alike. How it works: users contribute an amount of their choosing to the book titles offered at the platform by publishers. If the minimum funding amount is achieved, the publisher will release the book under Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND.
"The demand for open access books at De Gruyter has been increasing continuously," says De Gruyter CEO Sven Fund. "This has motivated us to offer select e-dition titles at Unglue.it and see if users are willing to help increase the number of open access works available."
De Gruyter will offer books from 1958 to 2003 that currently can no longer be ordered. Both English and German books from a wide range of subject areas will be offered.
"We're really excited and honored to be working with De Gruyter. Their broad commitment to both Open Access and to high quality publishing really distinguishes them from their competitors", says Eric Hellman, President of Gluejar Inc., the company behind Unglue.it.
March 11 , 2013
De Gruyter Presents Open Access Distribution Model for Libraries – A Short Film Called "The Art of Paper Planes" Creatively Demonstrates the Model
At the 2013 German Librarians' Day the academic publisher De Gruyter will be presenting its distribution model for open access articles. Under the model, libraries and research institutions can obtain various packages for open access distribution. The packages enable affiliated researchers to quickly publish their findings under the open access standard. Research contributions can be released as journal articles or book chapters in De Gruyter and Versita publications at the publishing house's own platform.
Under the so-called hybrid model, it is possible to additionally publish articles under the open access standard in traditional subscription journals. The attractive discounts offered by the De Gruyter model help to prevent customers from paying twice for the same content (so-called "double dipping"). "Our model aims to strengthen the status of the librarian as the central source of information on campus," says Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales at De Gruyter.
Over 10,000 open access articles were published by De Gruyter and Versita in journals and books in 2012. "The demand for this innovative publication standard continues to grow, and with our model we hope to win the very best content for our publishing portfolio," Siems adds.
De Gruyter has produced a short film that showcases its new open access model for libraries. "The Art of Paper Planes" demonstrates how the open access standard removes barriers to distribution and makes content easily accessible worldwide.
The film is being shown for the first time at the German Librarians' Day in Leipzig. It can also be viewed at De Gruyter's homepage: http://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/16
Additional information about the new distribution model, including prices, can be found at: http://www.degruyter.com/openaccess
March 5 , 2013
De Gruyter Signs 10,000 Title eBook Agreement with. YBP Library Services. Agreement to add academic ebook titles to GOBI3 database
De Gruyter, the international academic publishing house, announced today that it has signed an agreement with YBP Library Services (YBP), the academic division of Baker & Taylor, whereby nearly 10,000 titles from De Gruyter’s eBook program, e-dition, will be made available for purchase through GOBI3 (Global Online Bibliographic Information), YBP’s acquisition and collection management interface. De Gruyter publishes more than 850 new titles annually in medicine, the humanities, natural sciences and law, in addition to more than 600 journals and digital media publications.
“We are delighted to be taking this key step with YBP in making De Gruyter content and that of our partner publishers easily accessible to the library market in America and internationally. As the market for electronic content continues to grow, this capability will become even more important. We are pleased to partner with YBP for the benefit of our customers,” said Ben Ashcroft, Director Global Sales at De Gruyter.
“This partnership continues our long-term strategic initiative to provide our customers with the broadest possible access to leading scholarly content,” said Mark Kendall, Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations at YBP. “Our collaboration with De Gruyter offers our academic customers the combination of De Gruyter’s highly-respected and quality content and YBP’s value-added services to libraries and consortia.”
Through its partnerships with publishers (Böhlau Verlag, Otto Schmidt Verlag, Detail) and university presses (Harvard University Press) DeGruyter offers a backlist of more than 60,000 titles, spanning 260 years of publishing history to academic institutions worldwide.
Feburay 26 , 2013
De Gruyter Purchases Two Academic Publishers: Oldenbourg and Akademie
De Gruyter is proud to announce the acquisition of two academic publishers with a long and rich tradition: Akademie Verlag, based in Berlin, and Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, based in Munich. Both companies were acquired retroactively as of 1 January 2013 from Franz Cornelsen Bildungsgruppe, which is seeking to streamline its business.
"The acquisition of Akademie and Oldenbourg will considerably strengthen De Gruyter's publishing portfolio in numerous areas," said Sven Fund, CEO of De Gruyter. Both of the newly acquired publishing houses enjoy a strong professional reputation in the fields of history, philosophy, business science, and several areas of the natural sciences.
Together, Akademie and Oldenbourg published 44 professional journals and some 400 books in 2012, including the Complete Works of Marx and Engels, the Collected Letters of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, several recognized classics in business economics, and the renowned Tusculum Collection. The entire backlist of both publishing houses comprises some 4,000 titles.
"De Gruyter will invest in digitalizing the acquired publications and in strengthening international distribution," Dr. Fund added. De Gruyter has traditionally placed a special focus on close cooperation with scientific academies, professional associations, and authors. "The high quality of the scientific contributions that appear in the journals and books published by Akademie and Oldenbourg was the key reason for our purchase," Dr. Fund explained.
De Gruyter will preserve the offices of the acquired companies in Berlin and Munich, as well as the group representatives in Basel, Boston, and Peking.
Feburay 14 , 2013
Creative Commons License to Apply to All Open Access Content Published by De Gruyter
Effective immediately De Gruyter and Versita will be publishing all Open Access content under the uniform application of Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. This means that publications may be copied, disseminated, and otherwise made public by users under the following conditions:
- The name of the author/copyright owner must be mentioned in the manner requested by the author/copyright owner.
- The publication and its content may not be used in its Open Access format for commercial purposes.
- The publication and its content may not be edited, modified, or otherwise changed.
Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND is already the basis for the publishing contract concluded just days ago between De Gruyter and the Max Planck Society for the publication of Open Access books.
"With the use of this publication standard De Gruyter is catering to the wishes of researchers and scientific institutions. It provides for the widest possible dissemination of content while also ensuring that the rights of the copyright owners are protected," says Sven Fund, CEO of De Gruyter. "The uniform application of the CC-BY license offers authors a reliable foundation for publishing their works. It also enables them to apply for grants and subsidies without undue administrative effort."
In 2012 De Gruyter and Versita published over 10,000 Open Access articles in some 300 journals. Since 2009 a large number of books and book chapters have also been published under the Open Access standard. In addition to publication in dedicated Open Access journals, De Gruyter and Versita offer OA publication in established subscription journals (so-called Hybrid Open Access).
Feburay 5 , 2013
Christine Woll is Marketing Director at De Gruyter
Christine Woll has been appointed as De Gruyter's new Marketing Director, and will take up her post on 1 March 2013. Ms. Woll holds a degree in business administration with a focus on marketing and international management, and has extensive career experience in these two areas.
She was employed at KarstadQuelle New Media for several years, where she was able to gain much experience in the creation and development of new business areas for KarstadtQuelle (now Arcandor). Over five years Ms. Woll was Director for Marketing and e-Commerce for the hotel chain NH, where she developed and implemented a marketing strategy for Central Europe.
"We're pleased that Christine Woll is joining the company, as she is an innovative expert in the field of marketing with broad international experience," says Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales at De Gruyter. "We're confident that under her direction, our marketing team will creatively excel in the strategy pursued in recent months of engaging in cutting-edge and audience-targeted communications."
Feburay 1, 2013
HR Changes in De Gruyter's Production Department: Johannes Buchmann New Senior Manager for Journal Production
At the beginning of February Johannes Buchmann took the reins as Senior Manager for Journal Production in De Gruyter's Production Department. Mr. Buchmann previously held various positions at the German publisher Springer Verlag, including the position of production manager for Springer Medizin. He was also previously the head of production at the European Professional Publishing Group (EPPG), and, most recently, head of purchasing for the EPPG subsidiary Compact Verlag.
As Senior Manager for Journal Production Alexander Faust played a key role in developing and shaping De Gruyter's Journal Production Department. Since joining De Gruyter in January of 2009, Mr. Faust has been a crucial driver of path-breaking changes at the company. Mr. Faust switched to the position of Senior Manager for Book Production on 1 September 2012.
"De Gruyter will benefit greatly from Johannes Buchmann's expertise and experience in the production of professional journals and in the development and implementation of new standards and improved ¬processes," says Gregor Messmer, Director of Production at De Gruyter. "At the same time we're pleased to have Alexander Faust as a superb and experienced team leader in the area of book production."
January 24, 2013
The Max Planck Society and De Gruyter Sign Agreement for Open Access Publishing
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 individual 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 humanities, 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.
January 14, 2013
Erwin Panofsky’s rediscovered Habilitation thesis will be published by De Gruyter in 2014. The previously missing manuscript may well be regarded as a milestone in the academic history of the field of art history
Erwin Panofsky’s Habilitation thesis, which was previously believed lost and was discovered quite by surprise in June 2012 at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, will be published by De Gruyter in 2014. The work, titled Die Gestaltungsprincipien Michelangelos, besonders in ihrem Verhältnis zu denen Raffaels, was never published, and may well be regarded as a milestone in the academic history of the field of art history.
The epochal work is to be edited by Gerda Panofsky. De Gruyter will be publishing it accompanied by Gerda Panofsky’s own biography about her late husband’s early life, school, and student years, along with his conceptual sketches from the years 1915–17 that have been preserved in manuscript form. “There were a number of renowned German publishers who expressed interest in bringing the Habilitation thesis to print,” says Gerda Panofsky, “but not least, I found it compelling to have this work published by the same press where Panofsky’s first doctoral dissertation originally appeared.”
Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) was one of the most significant and influential art historians of the 20th century. His Freiburg dissertation on Dürers Kunsttheorie, vornehmlich in ihrem Verhältnis zur Kunsttheorie der Italiener (1914) was published in 1915 by the Georg Reimer Verlag, one of De Gruyter’s founding publishing houses. “In publishing Panofsky’s Habilitation thesis, the publishing house takes great pride in the opportunity to publish a second significant work by this influential scholar as part of its publication program in art history,” says Alexander Grossmann, Vice President of Publishing at De Gruyter. “We are certain that the academic world has been waiting expectantly to read and work with this book.”
January
10, 2013
De Gruyter Expands North American Presence with New STM Hires
With the start of the new year, De Gruyter is expanding its editorial team in the US. Alexander N. Greene will spearhead the ongoing development of the STM (Science, Technology, Medicine) program area at the publisher's Boston offices.
In past years De Gruyter strengthened its humanities program in US, hiring seven new employees. The US sales team was also expanded to seven positions. Thanks to these new hires De Gruyter was able to enhance its market share and improve its reputation in the American academic community.
"The new editorial positions in Boston are part of the ongoing strategic expansion of De Gruyter's international activities," says Sven Fund, CEO of De Gruyter. "Our new colleagues in Boston will help to elevate the profile of our company in the word's largest market for academic publications."
December 6, 2012
De Gruyter to Launch Employee Profit Participation Program
Starting next year De Gruyter will be offering its employees a way to profit directly from the company's success. De Gruyter’s management and shareholders have agreed unanimously to introduce an employee profit participation program. Beginning in January 2013, employees will be able to acquire certificates entitling them to a share of the company's profits. The program will run initially for six years, and will allow employees to benefit directly from strong company performance. In the event of losses, liability will be limited proportionally to the amount of capital invested in the participation rights.
This profit sharing program represents the capstone of a comprehensive effort at De Gruyter to acquire the very best talent and secure loyalty to the company over the long term. Many years ago the company introduced a variable compensation system based on company and individual performance; this system is now a highly successful bonus program.
"Highly motivated employees are our most important resource, and they are indispensable for meeting the complex challenges of the academic publishing world," says Sven Fund, CEO of De Gruyter. "I am extremely pleased that the shareholders, management, and works council all share the goal of finding the very best talent and winning their allegiance to the company. The shareholders are forward-looking in their willingness to share a portion of their profits with the company's employees.”
De Gruyter's profit participation system is a highly modern means of offering employees profit participation rights. Each employee can personally decide on how he or she wishes to participate. The returns earned under the program on invested capital are attractive, and considerably higher than market rates. Furthermore, higher than expected company earnings are to be particularly rewarded with higher dividend payments.
November 28, 2012
Publishing Houses Partner With De Gruyter for Patron Driven Acquisition – Considerable Content Growth for the Distribution Model
The idea behind Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) is simple: to offer users access to all digital content, but only charge for actual use. Beginning in 2013, two of De Gruyter's publishing partners – Harvard University Press, and Böhlau Publishers – will offer their content globally through De Gruyter Online as part of the PDA distribution model. By participating in PDA distribution, these publishing houses will be able to provide customers with access to a greatly expanded range of academic content. The partnerships will particularly enlarge the range of publications available in the field of history.
"As a cutting-edge method for providing content to libraries and research institutes, the PDA model is experiencing increasing demand internationally, and has been greeted positively by our customers," says Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales at De Gruyter. "Thanks to the excellent content provided by our partners, our publication portfolio will now appeal to even more users."
Beginning in 2013, libraries and research institutes will be able to rent access to some 11,000 e-books, 250 journals, and over 15 million database entries. At the end of the rental period, paid fees can be applied to content purchase.
November 19, 2012
Index Theologicus: A Fount of Information on Theology and Religious Studies – Tübingen University Library and De Gruyter Announce Cooperative Agreement
The academic publishing house De Gruyter has signed a cooperative agreement making its entire collection of journals in theology and religious studies available to Tübingen University Library’s Index Theologicus. This comprehensive database contains article information taken from more than 600 periodicals and from numerous Festschriften and conference publications from all over the world.
“A database like this is not static; to flourish, its volume and quality must grow constantly,” says Dr. Martin Fassnacht, director of theological collections at Tübingen University Library. “In the past, we were only able to index part of De Gruyter’s journals, so we are delighted to receive this abundance of new material. The cooperation allows our users to access complete articles online directly after performing a search.”
The scholarly importance of the Index Theologicus is reflected by its popularity, with over 10,000 individual searches each week. The database features universal authority files (Gemeinsame Normdateien, or GNDs), which assign individual numbers to each author, making it significantly easier to find a specific publication.
“De Gruyter uses global abstracting and indexing services to guarantee its authors large distribution and long-term content availability,” says Dr. Anke Beck, Vice President of Humanities at De Gruyter. “The data of the Index Theologicus are linked via the Südwestverbund (SWB) to most state libraries in Germany and can be accessed internationally, making this cooperation a cornerstone in our strategic orientation.”
October 9, 2012
New Partnership for Open Access Publication with the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)
De Gruyter has launched an innovative new partnership for open-access distribution with the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). A new study, “Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations in Europe: First Results from SHARE after the Economic Crisis,” will appear in mid-2013 as an open-access publication, meaning it will be available free of charge to researchers and decision-makers around the world.
“It is essential for our work that findings of importance for demographic policy be made freely accessible around the globe,” says Professor Axel Börsch-Supan, Coordinator of the SHARE project. “With De Gruyter, we have found a first-class and innovation-friendly partner to help us meet this need.”
Headquartered at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, SHARE is a multi-disciplinary research program conducted in 20 European nations. The program collects information about 80,000 persons aged 50 years and older, and reports on differences between older Europeans with respect to their health, socio-economic status, and family networks. Researchers are observing the aging process in individuals and societies in order to answer basic research questions and help guide important policy decisions.
De Gruyter is providing its open access partner with an attractive offer to enable the widest possible dissemination of content. In addition to providing global free access to the report at De Gruyter Online (www.degruyter.com), De Gruyter will also be publishing a print version. “Many publishers are capable of online publishing. Our open access model provides partners such as SHARE with the maximum level of quality in an innovative medium,” explains Dr Anke Beck, Vice President of Publishing at De Gruyter. “And based upon this partnership, we will continue to actively develop our open access model.”
October 4, 2012
De Gruyter Presents New Model for Digital Content Distribution –
Patron Driven Acquisition Offers Libraries Considerable Benefits
The idea behind Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) is simple: to offer users access to all digital content, but only charge for actual use. In partnership with the University of Hagen, Jülich Research Center, and University of Mannheim, De Gruyter recently completed a one-year trial of PDA, an innovative form of distribution that provides users with full content access prior to purchase. Based on the insights of this trial, De Gruyter has developed a new and consistent PDA model, which it is showcasing at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
The trial focused on answering three questions that have concerned libraries and publishers: Is Patron Driven Acquisition an economically sustainable strategy for both publishers and libraries? What metrics for determining PDA fees, such as usage levels or the size of the library, are applicable to the market as a whole? How should the PDA service be structured when offered by a publisher, in contrast to retailers and aggregators? The trial was supervised by Prof. Michael Seadle, Director of the Berlin School for Library and Information Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
"PDA is an excellent model for providing academic content to research institutes in a particularly cost-effective way," says Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales at De Gruyter. "During the trial we witnessed an increase in usage statistics for our content, and, based on the trial's insights, have developed a distribution model that is oriented to the needs and concerns of libraries."
Libraries can rent full access to over 450,000 journal articles and book chapters as well as over 15 million database entries. At the end of the rental period the paid fees can then be applied to the purchase of desired content. "The advantages are clear," Katrin Siems explains. "Libraries are able to provide their users with a large volume of content, but have the flexibility to only acquire content that is actually used.
With regard to retailers, Katrin Siems has a positive assessment of the opportunity for cooperation: "It is important for De Gruyter to involve retailers in this model."
For more information please visit: http://www.degruyter.com/page/428
October 2, 2012
Integrated Publishing at the De Gruyter Group: All Digital Content at One Platform
De Gruyter Online now features all content from Birkhäuser and the open-access publisher Versita
Over 450,000 e-books and e-journal contributions, over 15 million database entries, and some 17,000 open-access journal articles are available as of today at De Gruyter Online. "The integration of Birkhäuser and Versita content is the capstone of our platform migration," says Sven Fund, Managing Director of De Gruyter. "Now customers can access all publications from one platform, including all content from De Gruyter and from our partners Harvard University Press and Sellier European Law Publishers. Beginning in 2013, the platform will also feature content from the publishing houses Böhlau and Otto Schmidt."
The consolidation of all content at a single platform offers scholars enormous advantages, as re-search can now be conducted conveniently from one interface, regardless of the publication format or distribution model. Furthermore, there are a range of helpful features at De Gruyter Online to make day-to-day use easier, including alerting services that inform users about new releases in a specific field, as well as export interfaces for all major citation services.
Thanks to its "integrated publishing" strategy, the Berlin-based academic publisher is now prepared to move from the mere sale of books, journals, and databases to a wider range of purchase and distribution models. "We're convinced that old forms of production will be made obsolete by the new digital environment," Fund adds. "We thus offer purchase models tailored to all forms of need, from individual articles or chapters to our entire portfolio of new publications."
With the integration of some 17,000 open-access articles from the Versita imprint, De Gruyter is also catering to the desire of scholars to have access to high-quality commercial and open-access content from a single search interface.
September 4, 2012
De Gruyter Chooses TEMIS Semantic Content Enrichment Solution to Enhance Relevant Publication Identification on its Information Portal
Leading global academic publishing house will deploy Luxid® Content Enrichment Platform to deepen the level of exploration of its publication online library.
TEMIS, leading provider of Semantic Content Enrichment solutions and De Gruyter, Berlin-based academic publishing house, today announced they have signed a major license and services agreement.
Aware that Semantic Content Enrichment becomes mainstream in the information industry, De Gruyter has decided to integrate this method into its portal, in order to deliver next generation services and products.
“By adding Semantic Content Enrichment Technology to enhance our online platform and production processes, we increase customer satisfaction with the search and browse experience, make it easier to find relevant content quicker, and continue to provide innovative workflows and technology solutions to our authors and editors”, said Christian Kohl, Director Information and Publishing Technology.
TEMIS was an obvious choice for De Gruyter because of Luxid® Semantic Content Enrichment solution’s ability to achieve customized annotations and enrichment of content, when associated to domain-specific Skill Cartridges® as well as the availability of Luxid® Content Enrichment Studio user-friendly suite of tools to define, build, test, evaluate and deploy its own domain-specific Skill Cartridge®.
“Semantic Content Enrichment has become a key enabling technology in the publishing market, where TEMIS already serves a large number of prestigious customers. By selecting the Luxid® for Content Enrichment Platform from TEMIS, De Gruyter will deliver increased value to their readers and authors,” said Manfred Pitz, Director of Sales, TEMIS Germany. “We are excited about the wealth of functionalities Luxid® will add to De Gruyter’s recently released integrated platform De Gruyter Online.”
De Gruyter will deploy TEMIS' Luxid® Platform as part of their publishing workflow to enhance at first their medical and linguistics related content, providing advanced search and discovery tools designed to maximize searchability and serendipity. They will design their own domain-specific Skill Cartridges® accordingly, based on existing renowned domain-specific thesauri.
August 31, 2012
Birkhäuser and China Architecture and Building Press renew preferred partnership
The architecture and design publishers Birkhäuser and China Architecture and Building Press (CABP) have extended their cooperation. On the occasion of the 19. Beijing International Book Fair, representatives of both publishing houses inked an agreement that gives the respective other party privileged access to new publications.
“Over the past eight years, we have exchanged rights for 60 titles”, says Dr. Sven Fund, CEO of Birkhäuser’s parent company De Gruyter. “We have thus significantly expanded the reception of our authors in one of the most important growth regions of the world.”
“CABP and Birkhäuser will continue to develop top quality content for architects, landscape architects and designers jointly”, says Mr. Shen Yuanqin, President of China Architecture and Building Press. “One of the most remarkable joint projects has been the book on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.”
Birkhäuser and CABP are two of the most renown professional publishers in architecture worldwide and are active in publishing architecture books both in print and electronically.
August 29, 2012
De Gruyter Signs Partnership Agreement with the Chinese Publisher Commercial Press,
Establishing Strategic Partnership for Shared Content
De Gruyter has entered into a strategic partnership with Commercial Press, a renowned Chinese publisher in the humanities and social sciences. The partnership agreement, which is effective immediately, provides for the intensive exchange of academic content between the two publishing houses.
Commercial Press will translate selected works from De Gruyter's portfolio into Chinese and distribute them in the Chinese market. De Gruyter, for its part, will license titles of interna-tional interest from Commercial Press in order to produce English editions. These titles will be added to De Gruyter's English portfolio and offered internationally in both print and digital form.
"We are extremely pleased by this new cooperative agreement. Commercial Press is an excellent partner for top-rung academic content and, like De Gruyter, is willing to invest in this quality," said Vice President of Publishing Anke Beck, who heads up De Gruyter's activities in China. "The first fruits of this partnership for De Gruyter include The Language Atlas of China, The Language Situation in China, as well as several academic journals. De Gruyter is looking forward to offering these publications to an international readership." Commercial Press is already working on translating selected titles from De Gruyter's highly esteemed philosophy portfolio. These titles will become part of a series of Western classics that is known beyond China's borders.
Founded in 1897, Commercial Press publishes over 1200 new titles each year in a variety of fields, including philosophy, linguistics, and law. As the publisher of the premier dictionary of the Chinese language – a publication that has sold over 40 million copies – Commercial Press is one of China's most well-known publishing houses. Commercial Press is a founding member of the China Publishing Group.
"For us, the partnership with Commercial Press means more than just the licensing of titles," said Sven Fund, Managing Director of De Gruyter. "As equal partners, De Gruyter and Commercial Press are committed to sharing content in close collaboration with each other while also initiating joint projects."
August 23, 2012
Birkhäuser to Launch Over 300 e-Books in Architecture, Design, and Landscaping
At the end of September the publishing house Birkhäuser will launch one of the largest collections of e-books in the fields of architecture, design, and landscaping. With over 300 titles the e-book collection represents a large majority of Birkhäuser's publications since 2005. Many of these e-books are beautifully illustrated, and the collection features numerous standard works such as the Entwurfsatlas Schulen und Kindergärten (Design Atlas for Schools and Kindergartens), Licht für Städte (Light for Cities), and Syntax der Landschaft (Syntax of the Landscape). The collection also contains architectural monographs such as Bothe Richter Teherani, Christoph Mäckler, and Ortner & Ortner.
"As architects and designers regularly work with digital tools, it’s only natural that sources of infor-mation for their work should be offered digitally," said Alexander Grossman, Vice President of Pub-lishing. "Birkhäuser acquired rights for the digital publication of texts and images at an early stage; we are now looking forward to actual distribution."
Birkhäuser's e-books will be distributed through De Gruyter Online, as well as through direct sales and De Gruyter's retail channels. Birkhäuser's e-books are fully searchable online. There are also a number of purchase options; customers can buy individual titles or the entire collection as a com-plete package.
In the fields of architecture, design, and landscaping, the release of digital content has been slow in coming. This is largely because of legal questions related to content ownership. The 300 titles being released in September represent works to which Birkhäuser has digital distribution rights. "We're convinced that an appealing collection of titles in the fields of design and architecture is a necessity," Grossman added. "The large demand from libraries and end customers has strengthened our intentions of offering e-books for all coming titles to which we possess the necessary rights."
August 17, 2012
De Gruyter Partners with the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics
Comprehensive Portfolio of Publications to be Launched in 2013
De Gruyter has signed a partnership agreement with the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) in Tokyo.
The first joint project is the publication of the Japanese Language and Linguistics handbook series, which will comprise 12 volumes. The handbooks are written and edited by renowned linguists in Japan and across the world, including Masayoshi Shibatani, professor of linguis-tics at Rice University in Houston, and Taro Kageyama, the director of the NINJAL. In addition to Japanese, the volumes in the series will cover the Ryukyuan languages, Ainu, and Japa-nese sign language. The handbooks will be offered in print and online versions.
"We're extremely pleased by this partnership. The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics is a first-class partner for excellence in linguistics," says Uri Tadmor, the Edi-torial Director for De Gruyter Mouton. “The international reach of the Mouton imprint, which is one of the world's leading names in linguistics publishing, led NINJAL to select De Gruyter as a publication partner."
This partnership means the further strengthening of De Gruyter's publishing engagement in the Asian-Pacific region.
August 14, 2012
De Gruyter Completes Change of Legal Status
Walter De Gruyter GmbH & Co.KG has adopted a new legal form and is now operating as a limited liability company under the name Walter De Gruyter GmbH. The name De Gruyter will remain unchanged for branding purposes. With this change, the restructuring of the company that was initiated in 2011 is now complete.
"We want to channel all available resources toward international markets, which are growing at an ever-faster pace, while at the same time preserving the speed of our decision-making," says Sven Fund, Managing Director of De Gruyter. "Since 2011, De Gruyter has divested itself of property that it does not use. Furthermore, thanks to numerous acquisitions of publishing content, the company has clearly directed its focus on its core business as a publisher." Recent acquisitions include the open-access publisher Versita as well as the journal portfolio of the Berkeley Electronic Press. In addition, a De Gruyter subsidiary was opened in Peking in 2011. Birkhäuser, a Swiss publisher with a long tradition that was rescued from insolvency by De Gruyter, has been operating out of Basel since the beginning of August under the name Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH. Furthermore, De Gruyter is in the processing of taking over the evangelical publisher Evangelisches Verlagswerk GmbH, which is based in Trebbin, just outside Berlin.
As part of the strategic concentration of its publishing activities, De Gruyter will close both of its locations in Tübingen and Osnabrück by mid-2013. These closures will not lead to a loss of jobs.
"De Gruyter's strong growth has made organizational adjustments necessary so that we can continue to offer the best service to our authors and customers," Fund says. "This legal change is the capstone to our restructuring. With this decision, the publishing house's shareholders have made an important decision that will preserve freedom of action, both now and in the future, even if the company were to grow significantly larger. "
August 8, 2012
Two New Periodicals in De Gruyter’s Humanities Lineup: The Journal of Contemporary Drama in English and the Open-Access Sociocultural Pragmatics: An International Journal of Spanish Linguistics
De Gruyter has strengthened its international humanities portfolio with two new journals.
The Journal of Contemporary Drama in English is the official publication of The German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE). It is an international and interdisciplinary forum for outstanding scholarship on modern English-language theater arts. The biannual, peer-reviewed journal publishes close readings of plays with analysis of their history, politics, form, theory, and method. The journal also includes a book series. The first two titles, to be published in 2013, are Elżbieta Baraniecka’s Sublime Drama: British Theatre of the 1990s and Clara Escoda Agustí’s Collapse as Resistance in Martin Crimp’s Theatre.
Sociocultural Pragmatics: An International Journal of Spanish Linguistics is an open-access publication created to disseminate scholarship in theoretical and applied pragmatics, with a special focus on the social and cultural aspects of Spanish. Starting this fall, Sociocultural Pragmatics will appear biannually via De Gruyter Online. The journal is supported by the EDICE (Estudios sobre el Discurso de la Cortesía en Español), an international research project headquartered in Sweden. All the project’s studies will be digitally accessible without restriction, though De Gruyter will also provide print versions to libraries that desire bound copies.
“These two new periodicals – one in English literature and the other in Romance studies – are a very welcome addition to De Gruyter’s portfolio and will cement its leading position as an international publishing partner in linguistics and literature studies,” says Dr Anke Beck, Vice President of Publishing at De Gruyter. “Professional editors, the in-house digital platform De Gruyter Online, and our liberal open-access policy convinced the founders of these journals to publish their superb scholarship through De Gruyter.”
July 5, 2012
New Strategic Direction for De Gruyter's Marketing Department
Dorothea Kern Leaves the Company
De Gruyter's marketing department will be adopting a new strategic direction in order to better serve customer interests as well as leverage opportunities offered by modern technology for targeted customer communication. The main element of this new strategy is the establishment of a "campaign team" that will coordinate marketing activities.
"We want to provide our customers with customized information," said Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales at De Gruyter. "In recent months our marketing team has shown a great deal of creativity in tackling new challenges; it is now time to adapt the organizational structure of the department to changing requirements."
As part of this reorganization Director of Marketing Dorothea Kern is departing from the company on her own accord in order to pursue new career challenges. Dorothea Kern joined De Gruyter in April 1996. She was promoted to Advertising Manager in 1998, and later took over responsibility for all marketing activities as Director of Marketing.
Under Dorothea Kern's leadership the company's activities in the area of electronic marketing and social media were systematically expanded. In 2009 she led the development of a new brand strategy as well as the introduction of a new corporate design. "We regret Dorothea Kern's departure and thank her sincerely for many years of successful work at the company. We wish her the very best for her future personal and professional success," Katrin Siems said.
Within the scope of the marketing department's reorganization the company will shift funding from print to digital forms of communication in order to take into account to increasing importance of direct forms of customer contact. "In recent years we have considerably strengthened our marketing team, and are thus keenly aware of the new requirements placed on advertising media," Siems said. These requirements are related in part to De Gruyter's increasingly international activities; the marketing department will continue to play a key role in catering to customer preferences in various markets.
July 4, 2012
De Gruyter Partners with the American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) has signed a cooperative agreement with De Gruyter for the publication of the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. De Gruyter will publish both print and online versions of the professional journal.
Appearing on a quarterly basis, the journal features research on the quantitative aspects of profes-sional and collegiate sports.
"We are pleased to be cooperating with the American Statistical Association. This partnership represents another successful step in our strategy of cooperating with the world's most influential scientific associations," Alexander Grossman, Vice President of STM Publishing, said. "The journal is a great asset to our statistics and mathematics portfolio."
3 July 2012
New eJournal Model:
De Gruyter announces eJournal prices 2013
De Gruyter is pleased to announce its new eJournal pricing model 2013. The following subscription options are now available: Complete Package STM (Science, Technology, Medicine) including 300 journals, or LLH (Language, Literature, Humanities, Law, Economics) including 247 journals, Complete Package STM English only or LLH English only. The Complete Package (Big Deal) and the Complete Package English comprise the Complete Packages STM and LLH, English only respectively.
In addition, nine subject packages are available. Alternatively, it is possible to pick and choose from one of the subject packages, or continue a single subscription.
„With the new business model, De Gruyter offers its customers a maximum of flexibility for libraries of every size and financial power”, says Katrin Siems, Vice President Marketing and Sales at De Gruyter. „The new journal model is the logical continuation of our successful eBook strategy.”
Following subject packages are offered: Classical Studies and History; Biology, Chemistry, and Geosciences; Library and Information Science and Library Reference; Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering; Medicine; Philosophy, Theology, Judaism, and Religion; Politics, Economics, and Sociology; Law; Linguistics and Literature.
The 283 subscription journals include highlights such as Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (Impact Factor 2011: 2.150), and Crelle's Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik (Impact Factor 2011: 1.042). The Complete and Subject Packages also contain open access journals published in the respective subject areas.
The current list of journals including information on eJournal packages is available at: http://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/247/ejournal-packages
Accompanying the price list, De Gruyter undertook an analysis of trends in journal quality, quantity, and price in form of a White Paper: http://www.degruyter.com/staticfiles/pdfs/wp_EN.pdf
June 28, 2012
The IBZ Online Database Now Features Open Access Journals
IBZ Online, an international index of journal literature in the humanities and social sciences, now lists 1,323 open access journals that have never before been systematically indexed. Thanks to this new content, IBZ Online will add an additional 5,000 journal issues to its database each year, including 16,000 articles and 21,000 abstracts. The database is updated on an ongoing basis, and now contains over 3.3 million articles from approximately 11,500 journals.
IBZ Online helps to make the latest findings in the humanities and social sciences accessible to academia. Content is indexed with a keyword system that uses an interdisciplinary approach and features intentional overlap in the natural sciences. The database registers publications in over 40 languages.
"As open access journals in the humanities and social sciences are becoming increasingly significant, it is important for our customers and users that this content be included in IBZ database," Bettina Bartz, De Gruyter's Editorial Director for General Reference, said. "The editorial department would be happy to receive recommendations concerning additional journals that are not featured in the database and which are promising candidates for inclusion."
For over 100 years, the IBZ index has been the leading international reference database for journal articles in the humanities, social sciences, and neighboring fields. The range of fields encompassed by the index is one of a kind: no other database contains a broader pool of journal literature.
June 18, 2012
De Gruyter Saur IFLA Research Paper Award 2012
De Gruyter Saur and IFLA are delighted to announce that the winner of the De Gruyter Saur IFLA Research Paper Award 2012 is Adam Girard with his paper “E-books are Not Books: The Challenges and Chances in the New Media Context”. The author is Ph.D. student at the School of Information and Library Studies, Unversity College Dublin (Ireland).
The author receives prize money of EUR 1.000 donated by De Gruyter Saur and is invited to attend the President’s Lunch at the Annual IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Helsinki, Finland in August 2012.
This year’s topic of the De Gruyter Saur IFLA Research Paper Award was: “Libraries and eBooks, challenges and chances”. The jury – assembled by IFLA Governing Board member Paul Whitney, Harald Müller (Expert member of the IFLA Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM), Stuart Hamilton (IFLA’s Director of Policy & Advocacy) and Ingeborg Verheul (IFLA’s Director of Communications & Services) – unanimously agreed on their selection: “Girard’s paper is clearly on topic and provides a well-researched and thoughtful overview. By classifying e-books not as books but as new media, it opens up new ways of thinking for librarians, publishers and other stakeholders, in providing access to e-books in the near future.”
The award is aimed at encouraging research and publication by those relatively new to the profes-sion. Adam Girard has worked as metadata librarian at Northwestern University Evanston, IL (USA) and as audiovisual librarian Highland Park Public Library, Highland Park, IL (USA). His awarded paper will be published by De Gruyter Saur.
May 29, 2012
2012 Prize for Pathbreakers in Library Science Awarded. The Prize is Sponsored by De Gruyter and Awarded in Cooperation with the Journal "Library Research and Practice" (BFP) as well as the Foundation "Workshop of the Future for Culture and Knowledge Transfer"
Yesterday the 2012 prize for "Pathbreakers in Library Science" (Zukunftsgestalter in Bibliotheken) was awarded at the Librarians' Day conference in Hamburg. The recipients of this year's award are Birgit Fingerle of the German Central Library for Economics (ZBW) in Kiel, as well as Prof. Roland Rosenstock, Angelika Spiecker, Anja Schweiger, Marten Seegers, and Jan Krienke of the Hans Fallada City Library in Greifswald.
The five-man jury, composed of representatives from the journal BIBLIOTHEK Forschung und Praxis ("Library Research and Practice") as well as the Foundation Zukunftswerkstatt Kultur- und Wissensvermittlung e.V. ("Workshop of the Future for Culture and Knowledge Transfer"), said the following with regard to their decision: "It was no easy task to settle on two winning teams. The large number of submissions received within the scope of the 'Movers & Shakers' competition is a testament to the wealth of ideas, technical expertise, and dedication of employees in the libraries of the German-speaking world." As part of the competition, a great many recommendations for innovative and successful projects were received from public as well as academic libraries in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Birgit Fingerle's project, titled Participatory Innovation: ZBW's Open Innovation Campaigns, showed in a compelling and illustrative way how customers can be integrated into the change process in libraries. "Open innovation" is a key element in innovation management activities at the Central Library for Economics. Customers and external actors can get involved in a variety of ways – for example, by participating in idea competitions. In this way, customer preferences are a main driver of change and innovation at the library.
The participating team at the Hans Fallada City Library initiated a project called the Greifswald ComputerGameSchool: Play, Discover, and Learn. This media education project is a joint undertaking of the Greifswald City Library, the Faculty of Religious and Media Education at Ernst Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald, and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Evangelical Academy. The ComputerGameSchool is common space for dialog and exchange at the library between gamers and non-gamers, as well as between adolescents and adults. The goal of the project is to strengthen media competencies, address conflicts, and encourage critical reflection on the use of computer games.
The "Pathbreakers in Library Science" award was bestowed at the Librarians' Day conference for the very first time. In addition to the official commendation of the award-winning projects, the journal Library Research and Practice intends to showcase other selected projects in upcoming issues.
May 23, 2012
The e-dition Project: Over 6,000 Backlist Titles Digitized Over a Two-Year Period
In the last two years De Gruyter has successfully digitized over 6,000 backlist titles from its collection of books published over the last two-and-a-half centuries. "Digitalization on Demand" is the credo of the e-dition project, as books are only digitized following a specific customer order. In total De Gruyter now offers some 50,000 titles in digital format – some from 1749, the year of the publishing house's founding.
"The success of the e-dition project has significantly exceeded our expectations. We're immensely pleased that the demand from libraries has been so strong," Katrin Siems, Vice President of Marketing & Sales, said at the Librarians' Day conference in Hamburg. The project clearly shows that publishers can play an important commercial role in the migration from printed to electronic content. The e-dition project is still running on cylinders. "Each week we receive approximately 50 orders for non-digitized titles, and the majority of digitized books have been ordered more than once."
e-dition publications as well as "Print on Demand" titles and eBooks are available at De Gruyter's online platform at www.degruyter.com. The primary customers of the e-dition project are educational and research institutions that want to make their collections more accessible, as well as private customers who want expand their libraries with titles that are no longer available. e-dition titles are available from De Gruyter and book retailers. "Book retailers have played a considerable role in the success of the e-dition project," Katrin Siems said, praising the publishing house's collaboration with its retail partners.
May 22, 2012
The Publishing Houses Dr. Otto Schmidt and Böhlau choose De Gruyter as Sales Partner for Electronic Content. Publication of eJournals and eBooks to Begin in 2013
Beginning in 2013, the legal publisher Dr. Otto Schmidt and the publishing house Böhlau will work exclusively with De Gruyter for the electronic distribution of their books and journals. De Gruyter will sell the content of both publishing houses through its integrated online platform as well as via retailers to libraries and end customers.
"We were compelled by De Gruyter's expertise in the area of electronic publishing," Prof. Felix Hey, the managing partner of Dr. Otto Schmidt, said regarding the decision. "Beginning in 2013, we will offer eight journals and some 260 eBooks through the joint online platform. This will be the first time these publications will be offered electronically outside of databases."
Böhlau, which publishes in the fields of history, law, linguistics, social sciences, and literary studies, will also offer its publications digitally through De Gruyter beginning in 2013. "As part of this partnership, we will initially offer ten periodicals, including the journal Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte [Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History], which enjoys a rich history, as well as approximately 270 books," Johannes Rauch, the CEO of Böhlau, said.
"Through these cooperative relationships with Dr. Otto Schmidt and Böhlau we'll be expanding our portfolio with high quality publications that will augment our profile as a provider of content to libraries," Katrin Siems, the Vice President Sales & Marketing of De Gruyter said. "Of course, we will continue to pursue our policy of emphasizing quality instead of quantity, and of offering our customers a high degree of flexibility."
The new journals have already been integrated in the current price lists that will be sent out shortly to customers and trade partners. The eBooks will be part of De Gruyter's subject-area sales packages; more information in this regard will be released in the spring of 2013.
May 16, 2012
New House Style for De Gruyter Books and Periodicals
As part of an intensive collaboration with the renowned design agency Edenspiekermann, the De Gruyter House Style project group has developed a new typography that will now be introduced for the internal layout of all periodicals and books.
"The new house style will provide De Gruyter's publications with a distinct and unmistakable character," Production Director Gregor Messmer said. "In developing the new typography, we sought to ensure clear structure and legibility, as well as a high degree of readability for all publication types and subject areas."
The new typography is based on the "Meta" font family, which was expanded with a host of new custom characters for De Gruyter. The new font, named "De Gruyter Meta Science," includes a complete selection of Latin, Greek, and phonetic unicode characters, as well as a large private use area. The unique design of the typeface in combination with the use of dynamic font sizes provides a clear typographic style that will considerably augment the visual appeal of De Gruyter's print and electronic publications. De Gruyter will gradually transition to the new typography for all publications over the course of the year.
In 2009 the publishing house relaunched its corporate design for all book covers, advertising materi-als, and business stationery, thus establishing a consistent brand image. "The introduction of a new and unified typography for our publications is a natural extension of this branding effort," Katja Brockmann, the House Style project manager, said. "The visual appeal of the typography will be sure to enhance the positive perception of our products."
May 3, 2012
De Gruyter Appoints Renowned Academics to the New Editorial Board of the AKL Dictionary of Artists
The Allgemeine Künstlerlexikon (AKL) is an indispensable reference work in the field of art history. De Gruyter is proud to announce the appointment of several internationally renowned academics to the publication's new editorial board: Prof. Andreas Beyer, director of the German Forum for Art History in Paris; Prof. Wolf Tegethoff, director of the Central Institute for Art History in Munich; and Prof. Bénédicte Savoy of the Technical University of Berlin.
"We're pleased to have the opportunity to actively shape the future direction of this publication, which is an extremely important reference work in the field of art history, in accordance with the requirements of the field," Prof. Savoy said. "And we look forward to working with De Gruyter, a publishing house with an extremely rich tradition."
The new editorial board has been appointed as part of the publication's reorganization, which began last year. Alongside the continuation of the print edition in its traditional high quality, De Gruyter is working to expand the dictionary's online version, which spotlights current issues and trends in the field of art history.
“We have sought out the very best editors in order to fulfill our quality expectations for the diction-ary: namely, to address all time periods, cultures, and genres as they pertain to the visual arts, as well as to more specifically serve the needs of users," said Dr. Alexander Grossmann, Vice President of Publishing at De Gruyter. "The AKL will be a dynamic component of De Gruyter’s publication portfolio in the fields of art and architecture," Grossmann added.
"A key element of the new editorial approach is to open up the editorial process to an international circle of experts who will be invited to actively contribute," Prof. Beyer said during the first meeting of the editorial board in Berlin.
April 26, 2012
De Gruyter Goes Green - Interns and Trainees Organize a Green Day Event
De Gruyter is holding an environmental awareness event titled "Green Day" on 25 April. In a cooperative one-year project, sixteen De Gruyter interns and trainees investigated how to make the activities of the company and its employees more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Based on results of this project, called "De Gruyter Goes Green," a series of guidelines for all employees have been produced. The aim of the Green Day event is to share additional recommendations on how to make day-to-day activities more environmentally friendly.
The interns and trainees investigated all departments and the entire infrastructure of the publishing house. In the process, they identified and implemented numerous strategies for reducing the company's environmental impact, including the switch to a green-electricity service plan; the use of environmentally friendly paper and ink produced by the company Ecofont; the purchase of eco-friendly dishwashing soap and energy-efficient products; the implementation of a shared-use bicycle fleet in Berlin and Munich; the introduction of a "veggie day" in the cafeteria; and the appointment of a company officer for environmental issues. Since the beginning of 2012 the company has been using FSC certified paper for all printed products. Furthermore, as part of the project, the interns and trainees developed guidelines to help employees conserve electricity, heat, and paper while at work.
"Our colleagues undertook this project with a great deal of dedication and expertise. All of the company's employees were astounded at how much we have been able to change and at how easy it is to become more environmentally friendly," De Gruyter CEO Sven Fund said. "Environmental protection and the conservation of resources are of importance to everyone, and the De Gruyter Goes Green project has shown that this can be done without high costs or compromising quality."
At the Green Day event, presentations will be given titled "Fair Trade and the Fair Trade Seal" and "Why Climate Protection Has Nothing to Do With Political Correctness." Furthermore, cell-phone recycling boxes will be set up, a "Bike Doctor" will repair minor damage to bicycles, and – last but not least – the first vegetarian day will be held at the cafeteria.
The Green Day event comes just three days after Earth Day, which is celebrated in 150 countries on 22 April. During the current year, the interns and trainees will explore social responsibility and the company's obligations to the larger community. The results of this project will be presented at the beginning of 2013.
April 24, 2012
De Gruyter Acquires Birkhäuser
The Berlin-based academic publisher De Gruyter signed a contract today sealing its takeover of the publishing house Birkhäuser. Alongside the acquisition of Birkhäuser's architecture and design publishing division, the takeover includes the Birkhäuser brand name, which is also recognized for its first-class STM publications.
"Our purchase of Birkhäuser has considerably expanded our range of exclusive publications in art history and neighboring fields," De Gruyter CEO Sven Fund said. "Birkhäuser's catalog, which features some 50 front-list and 2,500 back-list titles, lends a new international profile to the Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, a general dictionary of artists published by De Gruyter."
Birkhäuser, a Swiss-based German-language publisher for design and architecture, declared insolvency in March of this year. Originally founded in 1879, Birkhäuser is one of the world's most renowned publishers for design and architecture, and is home to such influential authors and architects as Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Herzog & de Meuron, and Peter Zumthor.
April 23, 2012
The German Association for Religious Studies Selects De Gruyter as the Publisher for its Academic Journal
The German Association for Religious Studies (Deutsche Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft), which is the German branch of the International Association for the History of Religion, has concluded an exclusive contract with De Gruyter for the publication of its academic journal, titled Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft. The journal, which has appeared bi-annually in print since 1993, has made a significant contribution to the reputation enjoyed by German scholarship in religious studies. Beginning this year, the journal will be published by De Gruyter in print and electronic form.
"This contract to publish the Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft is an important step in the expansion of De Gruyter's religious studies portfolio," Dr. Anke Beck, Vice President of Publishing at De Gruyter, said. Dr. Albrecht Döhnert, Editorial Director for Religious Studies, added: "The journal, which will be supervised in part by our Boston office, adds the German voice in religious studies to our internationally oriented collection of publications."
The Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft is a forum for the discussion of important methodological and theoretical topics and theories across the entire spectrum of religious studies as well as in neighboring subfields of the humanities and social sciences. The journal presents articles that undertake a comparative assessment of historical and contemporary issues, both European and non-European, in religious history and contemporary culture. The journal is edited by Christoph Auffarth (Bremen), Max Deeg (Cardiff), Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler (Marburg), Christel Gärtner (Münster), and Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt).
"We are pleased for numerous reasons to cooperate with the German Association for Religious Studies. The collaboration represents a solid confirmation of our strategy to build partnerships with the most important academic journals in the humanities and social sciences," Dr. Anke Beck concluded.
February 20, 2012
Expansion of the Jewish Studies Program at De Gruyter: Co-operations with Magnes Press and the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum
De Gruyter is expanding its focus on Jewish Studies within the publisher’s Humanities program and to this end has signed two contracts with important cooperation partners.
The Hebrew University Magnes Press in Jerusalem and De Gruyter have signed an agreement to co-publish titles in Jewish Studies in print and electronically. The partnership joins Magnes Press unique position as Israel’s premier academic press and its strong tradition in publishing fine Judaica scholarship from Israel with De Gruyter’s strengths in marketing and distributing to the international market.
According to Hai Tsabar, CEO of Magnes Press, the new cooperation will open new opportunities for Israeli scholars to reach the English speaking audience utilizing Magnes Press’ strong academic super-vision on the one hand and De Gruyter’s efficient marketing abilities on the other hand.
In cooperation with the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum in Potsdam, the series “European-Jewish Studies” will be published from 2012 onwards. This series comprises three subseries: “Contributions”, “Controversies” and “Editions”. The first volume, to be published in April, will be Hannah-Lotte Lund’s “Der Berliner jüdische Salon um 1800” [“The Berlin Jewish Salon around 1800”], a title that has been eagerly awaited by many ‘salon researchers’.
The Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and thus underlined its importance as a first-class non-university research institute.
“We are delighted with the cooperation with Magnes Press and the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum, because these partnerships will provide our strong Jewish Studies program with new, top-quality con-tent”, comments Dr. Anke Beck, Vice President Humanities at De Gruyter. “This content, which we will be integrating into our new online platform and also disseminating globally through our international sales channels, makes our program even more attractive to authors and academics all over the world.”
February 15, 2012
De Gruyter in another important blow against internet piracy
Participating in an international alliance of publishers and publishers’ associations De Gruyter yesterday achieved an important success in the combat against internet piracy. Overcoming significant technical and legal obstacles, the publishers were able to locate the alleged operators of the sharehoster service “www.ifile.it” and the link library “www.library.nu“, and to serve judicial cease-and-desist orders to these operators.
The two entities created and operated an "internet library" which made available illegally more than 400,000 e-books, in very good quality, for immediate, free and anonymous download, including various famous titles from De Gruyter. The operators made an estimated turnover of € 8 million ($10,602,400 US) from advertising buys on the sites, donations and sales of premium-level accounts, making it one of the most significant piracy websites in the world.
„Publishers like De Gruyter interested in transparent, honest and fair trade of digital content on the Internet must not be frightened by illegal activities on copyright crime“, says Dr. Sven Fund, CEO of De Gruyter.
The particularly dangerousness of the services lies in the close interconnection of a sharehoster service and a link resource. With this interconnection it has been possible to make all copyrighted works which have been uploaded illegally accessible to the public, without limitations. Extensive claims by the international publishers were able to be asserted against the service providers who had partially concealed their identities.
Here, De Gruyter and all participating publishers continue to follow the route of not simply accepting copyright infringements, but rather taking all available legal measures against the large illegal platforms.
February 2, 2012
De Gruyter renews Kant and Nietzsche edition projects
The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences have concluded contracts with De Gruyter which will provide a major impetus for the publication of the complete editions of Nietzsche and Kant.
De Gruyter’s agreement with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences provides for the reissue and the completion of the critical edition of Kant's Collected Works. This 26-volume edition will be published in four sections up until 2022. As each printed volume appears, its digital version will become available as well. The four sections cover Kant’s works, letters and documents, his legacy and lecture notes.
The contract with the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences provides for the publication of seven new commentary volumes on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. These commentary volumes are all integrated into De Gruyter’s Nietzsche Online database.“This collaboration with the two academies shows that De Gruyter upholds a longstanding tradition that is combined with a high level of product innovation and content standards,” comments Dr. Anke Beck, Vice President Publishing Humanities at De Gruyter. “We are delighted with this further important addition to our renowned philosophy program.”
The Works of Friedrich Nietzsche - Critical Edition (KGW) has been published by De Gruyter since 1967, while the Nietzsche Online database with over 100,000 pages by and about Nietzsche was first created in 2010. From 1900 onwards, the Georg Reimer publishing company – one of the five founding publishers of De Gruyter – issued the ‘Large Academy Edition’ of the works of Immanuel Kant. Apart from one outstanding volume section, this edition is now complete.
January 20, 2012
Publisher De Gruyter collaborates with the American Library Association (ALA) on publishing and distributing the new standard RDA: Resource Description and Access
De Gruyter and the ALA have signed an agreement, according to which the publisher will be responsible for the publication and global distribution of the German-language version of the new set of cataloguing standards for print and digital media in libraries and beyond, RDA: Resource Description and Access. The publisher will also sell licenses for the multilingual online version RDA Toolkit in German-speaking countries.
RDA is a flexible tool for recording bibliographic metadata and, as a new library standard, has the potential to serve as a basis for the international exchange of bibliographic metadata across global networks. RDA’s content has been developed in a collaborative process led by the international Joint Steering Committee (JSC). The project is overseen by the Committee of Principals representing the American Library Association (ALA), Canadian Library Association (CLA), Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP, UK), Library of Congress (US), Library and Archives Canada, British Library, and National Library of Australia. RDA Toolkit is co-published by the ALA, CLA, and CILIP—through its imprint Facet Publishing.
In Germany the German National Library advised the JSC in the initial development of RDA and has recently accepted an invitation to permanently join the JSC so they may participate in the ongoing development of RDA. The German National Library has taken a leading role in producing a German version of RDA. Major international libraries and library associations in the USA, Canada, Australia and Great Britain have been pushing for the introduction of RDA, which is expected to be recognised internationally as the successor of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2) and meet the demands for a much more tightly networked information landscape.
“By publishing these standards, De Gruyter is making a major contribution towards the desired internationalisation of German libraries”, said Dr Alice Keller, Editorial Director of Library Reference & History at De Gruyter. “Thanks to our long-standing cooperation with national libraries and library associations worldwide, De Gruyter Saur is one of the leading publishers for global library standards, which is why this work fits in extremely well with our programme.”
The German Standards Committee decided to internationalise German standards back in late 2004, including switching over to MARC 21 and actively participating in developing RDA’s genesis process. The German National Library is currently working on a German translation for German-speaking countries. The decision to implement RDA in the USA has been recommended for 2013.
January 9, 2012
De Gruyter acquires Versita and becomes third-biggest international Open Access publisher
De Gruyter, the Berlin-based academic publishing company, is acquiring the publisher Versita. As a service provider to academic organizations and bodies, Versita publishes over 230 journals on Open Access basis, i.e. outside the traditional subscription model. With this acquisition De Gruyter is substantially increasing its presence in an important future market of academic publishing. The complete staff of Versita is being retained in this take-over.
“The purchase of Versita is a logical continuation of our publishing strategy of recent years, which involves giving both our authors and our customers an optimum range of publishing options”, says Dr. Sven Fund, the Managing Director of De Gruyter. “For us, the most important issue is that our publications have high-quality content, and not how they are financed.”
As of 2012 De Gruyter will be merging the newly acquired Open Access journals with its traditional subscription-based and freely sold content on one electronic platform, thus providing researchers with an outstanding service: users will have a powerful search interface for searching all academic articles from journals, books and databanks in which the articles have been published, independently of the various business models.
“For some time now, Open Access has been an important element of academic publishing. With the integration of all Versita content under a joint publishing administration on the new De Gruyter platform, we are now realizing the principle in our program,” continues Fund.
In the future, De Gruyter’s Open Access activities will be managed by Jacek Ciesielski as Vice President Open Access. Ciesielski founded Versita in 2001 and has been expanding the enterprise ever since. “Now that we have joined forces with De Gruyter, I look forward to further developing and internationalizing my activities together with De Gruyter”, comments Ciesielski.
January 5, 2012
De Gruyter Chosen by Harvard University Press as Sales Partner for its Electronic Content. Transatlantic Agreement Will Extend both Organizations’ International Reach
Beginning in January, 2012, Harvard University Press will market its entire range of electronic products, including both new books and a back catalogue of more than 10,000 titles, through the Berlin-based independent publishing house De Gruyter, Harvard University Press and De Gruyter announced today.
William P. Sisler, Director of University Press (HUP), said the partnership furthers HUP’s commitment to ensuring its serious nonfiction of the highest quality reaches a diverse and global audience.
“The international reach of De Gruyter’s electronic marketing will enable us to share vital ideas with a widening audience of scholars, students, and general readers across the globe — our mission for nearly 100 years,” Sisler said.
Katrin Siems, Vice President Marketing and Sales at De Gruyter, noted that the partnership with HUP comes at the same time De Gruyter is introducing a new platform featuring an integrated interface for e-books, journals, and databanks.
“For De Gruyter, this partnership brings two enormous benefits. Firstly it confirms our long-term in-vestment policy in electronic publishing. Secondly, the inclusion of Harvard’s newly published and backlist books in our product range will significantly increase the attractiveness of our content for libraries in the international markets.” on scholarly communications by dedicating ourselves to enabling library-led publishing and research dissemination programs with Digital Commons."
De Gruyter will take on the journals with immediate effect. They will be integrated into the existing editorial offices, and personnel will be added as needed. The subject area Business/Economics, which was previously not part of the De Gruyter portfolio, will be under the publishing supervision of the Law Department.
"The acquisition of Berkeley Electronic Press’ journals is an important milestone in De Gruyter's internationalization efforts," according to Dr. Sven Fund, Managing Director. "Not only will we gain the highest quality English-speaking authors and their content for our program, but we will also be able to add a prestigious community of subscribers to the De Gruyter family."
De Gruyter's portfolio increases from 173 to 235 journals through the acquisition.