Around 1,500 publications (more than 50,000 pages) authored by current and former WZB researchers were digitized by the WZB library 2014/15. They are now freely and permanently accessible on the Internet. The texts were converted into searchable PDF/A files while maintaining their original layout. PDF/A is an ISO-standardized version of the Portable Document Format (PDF) specialized for the digital preservation of electronic documents.

This project, which is called OA 1000+, makes thus available the following publications to a potentially worldwide public:

• a major part of texts published by 34 scientists between 1966 and 1994, including monographs, articles published in edited volumes or journals, papers published by third-party research institutions, newspaper articles, etc.
• monographs and articles by 40 scientists in edited volumes, published by edition sigma, a German publishing house; the corresponding books, which were published between 1985 and 2004, are now out of print.

The digitized texts are primarily available via EconStor, the Open Access server of the German National Library of Economics – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. EconsStor is one of the most prestigious Open Access document servers in the German research landscape. Due to their availability on dedicated Open Access servers, the texts can also be found by using common search engines. In addition, they will be retrievable via the Open Access platform “Research Papers in Economics” (RePEc), the WZB library catalog, library union catalogs such as the KOBV portal and the KVK (Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog), and the publication search on our website.

A complete list of the digitized texts can be viewed by using the following links:

• all digitized publications (1520);
• book chapters (777);
• journal articles (538);
• books (123);
• reports and working papers (62);
• newspaper articles (20).

The project could mainly be realized thanks to the authors’ willingness to transfer to the WZB the rights for non-commercial republication of their texts, mostly based on §137l of the German copyright law.

Recent studies on researchers’ information behavior show that it can be very useful to make older publications available on the Internet. Science communication today is largely shaped by digital media: researchers from all disciplines expect to find content online. This is also true for the social sciences – where non-digital publications are still an important reference and starting point for the current research.  The high number of downloads of documents from the OA 1000+ project impressively demonstrates this.

If you are interested in learning more about OA 1000+, please do not hesitate to contact us (openaccess [at] wzb.eu).