Leibniz Open Access Repository
What is the Leibniz Open Access Repository and how was it developed?
The Leibniz Open Access Repository is the central catalogue of the Leibniz Association’s open access publications.
The origins of the Leibniz Open Access Repository go back to 2003, when the Leibniz Association signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities This led to the formation of the Open Access Working Group in 2005, which was charged with developing open access guidelines. These Guidelines on Open Access were approved by the General Assembly of the Leibniz Association in 2007 and have been in effect ever since.
To assist its institutes in implementing the guidelines, the Leibniz Association established the Leibniz Open Access Repository. Its main objective is to maximise the visibility of the Leibniz Association's publishing output.
What are the principles on which the Leibniz Repository is based?
The Leibniz Association consists of research institutes that work in a range of different subject areas, as well as institutions that specialise in information infrastructure. These latter institutions actively promote open access in their subject areas, and in some cases have been pursuing this goal for many years.
These specialist information institutions (DIPF, GESIS, TIB, ZB MED, ZBW, ZPID in cooperation with the <Saarland University & State Library>) operate subject-specific document servers which the Leibniz institutes can use to make their publications accessible. Each Leibniz institute is assigned to an open access repository which acts as its point of contact.
Using a standardised interface, all Leibniz publications from these document servers are brought together in a comprehensive overview known as the Leibniz Repository.
This interface can also be used to import metadata into the Leibniz Repository from other document servers, such as existing document servers operated by individual Leibniz institutes.
One of the key benefits of this organisational structure is how it makes publications available to the virtual libraries (subject portals) of the specialist information institutions – often referred to as “subject gateways”. This helps to improve visibility within the subject-specific research community. In the case of ZB MED, subject-relevant documents from the Leibniz Repository are incorporated into the virtual libraries GREENPILOT and MEDPILOT.
How are publications fed into the Leibniz Repository?
Institutes who have the ZB MED as their point of contact for the Leibniz Repository essentially have two options:
- One possibility is to use our document server, which runs the PubMan software. To learn more about how this option works, please contact us. The first step is to sign a cooperation agreement between your institute and the ZB MED. This will grant you access to upload your publications using PubMan. We will also provide you with instructions on how to use the system and information on copyright law. You will be responsible for entering metadata, uploading the publications and clarifying copyright issues with authors (obtaining permission for online publication), while our task consists in verifying the quality of the metadata and full texts, releasing them for publication and dealing with the technical issues involved in forwarding them to the Leibniz Repository.
- Alternatively, you may already have a system set up to store your institute's open access publications on an existing document server. In this case, you can incorporate the metadata into the Leibniz Repository using an OAI interface, thereby avoiding multiple entry of the same data. Please feel free to contact us for assistance, making sure to name a point of contact to can help us coordinate the technical issues and the base URL of your document server. We will sign a cooperation agreement with your institute and set up an automatic system to periodically harvest the relevant publications and incorporate them in the Leibniz Repository. Once it is up and running, no further action will be required on your part.
Which Leibniz institutes have the ZB MED as their point of contact?
If you belong to one of the Leibniz institutes listed below, you can contact the ZB MED at any time to find out more about the Leibniz Repository. If your institute is not listed below, please contact one of the Leibniz Association's offices to get information on your point of contact for the Leibniz Repository.
Section C:
- Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS)
- Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg (BNI)
- German Diabetes Centre, Leibniz Centre for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf (DDZ)
- German Research Center for Food Chemistry, Garching (DFA)
- German Institute of Human Nutrition, Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIfE)
- German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen (DPZ)
- German Rheumatism Research Centre, Berlin (DRFZ)
- German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Braunschweig (DSMZ)
- Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology, Dummerstorf (FBN)
- Leibniz Institute for Age Research – Fritz Lipmann Institute, Jena (FLI)
- Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology, Berlin (FMP)
- Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Center for Medicine and Biosciences, Borstel (FZB)
- Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology – Hans-Knöll Institute, Jena (HKI)
- Heinrich Pette Institute for Experimental Virology and Immunology at the University of Hamburg (HPI)
- Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors at TU Dortmund University (IfADo)
- Leibniz Institute of Neurobiology, Magdeburg (IfN)
- Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Halle (IPB)
- Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben (IPK)
- Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf gGmbH (IUF)
- Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin (IZW)
- Leibniz Institute for Arteriosclerosis Research at the University of Münster (LIFA)
- Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Research Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity at the Humboldt University Berlin (MfN)
- Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, Frankfurt am Main (SGN)
- Alexander Koenig Zoological Research Museum – Leibniz Institute for Terrestrial Biodiversity, Bonn (ZFMK)
Section E:
- Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel (IFM-GEOMAR)
- Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin (IZW)
- Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, Grossbeeren & Erfurt (IGZ)
- Baltic Sea Research Institute Warnemünde at the University of Rostock (IOW)
- Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape and Land Use Research, Müncheberg (ZALF)
- Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, Bremen (ZMT)
