Open Access at ZZF

The central technical and infrastructural foundation of Open Access at the ZZF is the ZZF Repository, which serves as a publishing service, digital archive and retro-digitisation platform and provides access to more than 2,000 open access publications. IT staff maintain and further develop the platform and ensure its stable operation.

All activities are planned and coordinated in the cross-departmental working group “Zeitgeschichte digital”, whose members from IT, the Publications Office, the Library, the online editorial teams and Public Relations meet on a monthly basis.

The Publications Office supports authors and negotiates with publishers for timely – and, where possible, simultaneous – open access publication of titles from the ZZF’s publication series.

The Library is responsible for key quality assurance and cataloguing tasks: it reviews submissions to the repository before publication, ensures their inclusion in national union catalogues and arranges for their long-term preservation at the German National Library.

The Public Relations department raises the visibility of selected open access publications through a range of announcement formats and communication channels.

The online editorial teams contribute a substantial share of the content, including material from zeitgeschichte | online, Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte and Visual History.