Open Access in Romance studies
What is Open Access? Find an introduction here. Source: based on Brinken, H. (2021). 10 Gründe für Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643859 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access: Pros and Cons Find an introduction here. Open Access Publishing and Self-Archiving Find an introduction here. Open Access in Linguistics Find an introduction here. Open Access in Romance Studies Although access to digital publications is highly valued in Romance studies, open access is rather underrepresented there compared with other disciplines. Romance studies has a heterogeneous publication culture in which established models of publication and dissemination of research results play a central role. Printed journals continue to occupy a special place, and, besides journals, edited collections are an important form of publication. Publishers and independent journals as well as researchers and associations are increasingly breaking new ground in the form of open access publications and initiatives – to date, mainly in the journals area, but increasingly also in the area of monographs and edited collections. The topic of open access is becoming increasingly important in the publication culture in Romance studies, not least because of the positions and requirements of research funders. Small publishers are responsible for a substantial part of the publication output in Romance studies, and many of them now offer open access options. The information offerings and networking activities of the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies ( FID Romanistik ) are also worthy of mention. Impetus has been forthcoming from the community through journal startups and a position paper on open access and research data ( Schöch et al., 2017 ) produced by the Digital Romance Studies Working Group ( AG Digitale Romanistik ) of the German Association of Romance Philologists ( Deutscher Romanistikverband) . The topic is also gaining traction, especially among mid-level academics, through workshops organised by the German Association of Romance Philologists and through inter-disciplinary discussions and further education programmes at graduate schools. Best-practice examples and reports of concrete experiences were presented at a workshop in 2017 in which publishers, editors, and researchers participated ( Hornung & Trapp, 2018 ). A survey of German-speaking Romance philologists ( Hornung et al., 2017 ) conducted in 2016 by the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies ( FID Romanistik ) provided insights into the question of how open access is perceived in the discipline and what factors influence researchers when it comes to deciding whether to publish open or closed access . The survey found that the reputation of the publisher, the series, the journal, and the editors were decisive factors. Although respondents valued the high degree of dissemination and the findability of open access publications, these factors were not decisive. The survey results suggest that Impact Factors, which are of central importance in other disciplines, play hardly any role in Romance studies. A more recent survey conducted by the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies (Schepers, 2024) suggests that awareness of open access has increased. Respondents formulated specific concerns and problems, such as the funding of open access monographs or possibilities of self-archiving works published with a publisher, while also pointing to a need for information about – and to barriers to – open access publishing. Open Access Journals As of April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals listed 66 entries under Romanic languages and 176 entries under French literature - Italian literature - Spanish literature - Portuguese literature . Important open access journals include: apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania] Estudios Culturales Hispánicos (University of Regensburg) HeLix – Dossiers zur romanischen Literaturwissenschaft Horizonte – Neue Serie • Nuova Serie Romanische Studien Versants – Revista suiza de literaturas románicas (University of Bern) Zeitschrift für Katalanistik – Revista d’Estudis Catalans (German Association of Catalan Philologists) Other journals from neighbouring and superordinate fields, such as general linguistics , comparative literary studies, and the digital humanities, that are also of relevance to Romance studies include: Glossa: a journal of general linguistics HiN – Alexander von Humboldt im Netz Iberoamericana. América Latina - España - Portugal iMex. México Interdisciplinario/Interdisciplinary Mexico Miradas – Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte der Amérikas und der iberischen Halbinsel PhiN – Philologie im Netz Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics Textpraxis. Digitales Journal für Philologie Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht ZfdG - Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaften Also worthy of mention are review journals such as fabula.org for Franco-Romance studies. Bibliodiversity is also apparent among open access publications that are more firmly anchored in the field of Romance studies outside Germany, especially among Latin American offerings provided by the platforms sciELO , Redalyc , AmeliCA , and Latindex ( Müller, 2020 ). Among the German-language offerings there are also early pioneer projects, in particular PhiN – Philologie im Netz , which was launched as a purely open access journal in 1997. The number of open access journals is increasing due, especially, to new periodicals such as apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania] . By contrast, transformations of existing periodicals in Romance studies in the German-speaking area are still rare. However, the Zeitschrift für Katalanistik has a certain exemplary character because all issues are hybrid in the sense that they are made available in print for a fee and online in open access, and all older volumes dating back to the very first volume in 1988 have been retrodigitised. A similar repositioning can be seen in the case of Versants . The journal Horizonte - Neue Serie • Nuova Serie was newly founded as an independent open access publication after the discontinuation of its subscription-based predecessor, Horizonte . The founding of the open access journal Glossa in 2016 was spectacular in that it emerged from a conflict between the editorial board of the journal Lingua and the publisher Elsevier. Whereas authors in other disciplines often have to pay article processing charges (APCs) to have their works published open access, that funding model is – with a few exceptions – not common in Romance studies, where publishing is usually free of charge for authors ( diamond open access ), because many purely open access journals are run by institutes or by the editors themselves. Exceptions are hybrid journals of the major publishers in which individual articles are published open access against payment of a fee. Also of relevance is the possibility to self-archive the contributions in a repository after an embargo period of 12 months. In the case of promptus – Würzburger Beiträge zur Romanistik , for example, this is implemented by the editors. In Romance studies, it is relatively common for journals to be hosted either in-house or by local libraries, some of which are supra-regionally active. For example, the journal apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania] is hosted by Hamburg University Press using the free software Open Journal Systems (OJS) . The French platform OpenEdition Journals hosts numerous other journals of relevance to Romance studies from various countries. Also worthy of mention are the publication service of the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin, the hosting offerings of many local university libraries, and the Open Library of Humanities . What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality Video on the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Funding Open Access Articles – What Are the Options?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73596 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) What are Open Access Books? Find an introduction here. open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Books As of April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 171 entries under the search term Romance languages and 193 entries under Romance literature ; in addition, there are the titles in the individual Romance disciplines, for example Catalan language (45 entries as of April 2024). The online library and publication platform OAPEN listed 804 titles under Romance languages and 121 titles under Romance literature as of April 2024. Overall, offerings in the area of monographic OA publications in Romance studies tend to be isolated and heterogeneous. However, the presence of the format is increasing. Yet, none of the above-mentioned platforms fully cover the broad spectrum. Examples in the area of freely available monographs and collections, which are usually published open access and in print at the same time ( "dual publishing "), include: the supplements to the journal Romanische Studien ; the series Imágenes de la diversidad funcional. Literatura, artes escénicas, visuales y virtuales , which has been published with Peter Lang since 2018; the series Aula , which has been published by de Gruyter since 2020; the offerings of the hybrid-publishing university presses , which developed open access models at an early stage; the French platform OpenEdition Books the series Open Romance Linguistics published by Language Science Press; the humanities publication series published by Open Humanities Press and Open Book Publishers ; individual titles published by diverse publishers with a Romance programme, including AVM, de Gruyter, Peter Lang, transcript and Vervuert. The panorama of these publications is extremely heterogeneous. It largely comprises new titles. In addition, there are titles that are made freely available after a certain period of time or that appear in open access as a new edition or a translation, as in the case of Joachim Küpper’s classic work Discursive "Renovatio" in Lope de Vega and Calderón . With Knowledge Unlatched , there have also been some – albeit unsuccessful – initial initiatives to "unlatch" commercial publications in partnership with several specialised publishers. As the DFG has declared open access the priority publication mode for the projects it funds, and other research funders have already made the provision of open access mandatory, a strengthening of the open access monograph in Romance studies is to be expected. However, the additional costs for free access to a monograph that arise at most traditional publishers are an obstacle to this. Extensive funding programmes do not exist at present. In individual cases, the costs may be covered by the monograph funds that have been established at many scientific institutions, by the DFG, or by foundations. In the case of third-party-funded projects, the easiest way is to include applications for the reimbursement of open access costs in the project proposal. University presses can play a complementary role, as can the offerings of non-conventional publishers listed in the overview. Disciplinary Repositories Since 2025, the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies (FID Romanistik) has been providing a repository for Romance studies in the form of a Romance studies collection. Although technically part of the Repositorium.Hamburg , it is available for use by the Romance studies community as a whole. All articles in this collection are also listed in the search portal of the Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies. There are other repositories for sub-disciplines of Romance studies and for neighbouring disciplines – for example, Archivum Medii Aevi Digitale for medieval studies, AfricArXiv for African studies, CompaRe for general and comparative literary studies, and the Linguistik-Repository for general and comparative linguistics. LA Referencia , a network of open access repositories in Latin America, is illustrative of the distinctive repository landscape in that region. Portugal’s scholarly repositories are aggregated by RCAAP . Also of relevance are the HAL Open Science Archive , which is authoritative for the humanities and social sciences in France; the internationally established universal repository zenodo.org ; and the platforms of the local libraries. The content of the aforementioned repositories is, in part, searchable via regional and supra-regional search engines. The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine ( BASE ) can also be expediently used for searches with a specifically open access focus. An overview of relevant repositories is provided by the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) . What are Repositories? Find an introduction here. Legal Aspects Find an introduction here. Video über das Zeitveröffentlichungsrecht Quelle: Brehm, E. (2021). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/51789 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Practical Tip Finding Open Access Literature (in German) Open Access Helpdesk You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk of you have any questions about Open Access. oa.finder The oa.finder shows you from tens of thousands of journals which are Gold Open Access, whether they charge APCs and how high these are. You can also view the funding modalities of your own institution. Other Useful Offerings There are other useful offerings both with a specifically Romance studies orientation and with a transdisciplinary orientation. The local libraries offer their publication and advisory services to researchers at the respective institutions. Graduate schools are also increasingly arranging advisory and training offerings. The Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies ( FID Romanistik ) offers a discipline-specific information and advisory service . Via the project website, basic information is presented on open access, especially on legal issues. When doing so, concrete application scenarios from publishing practice in Romance studies are discussed – for example, regarding open access publishing and self-archiving, the role of translations, and publishers and repositories in different countries. Personal advice is also offered. The Romanistik-Blog features information on current topics, legal issues, funding conditions, as well as specific offerings and projects. The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content relevant to Romance studies. Open Science in Romance Studies The free accessibility and reusability of primary texts, images, and research data; the machine readability of texts; and procedures such as text and data mining are also subjects of increasing discussion. Platforms with a corresponding agenda from the Romance-language countries include, for example Gallica (France), the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (Spain), and the Biblioteca Italiana (Italy). A recent example relating to the reusability of images is a decision by the Biblioteca Nacional de España that resulted in images from its holdings being made available free of charge since March 2020 for use in scholarly publications. Of note in the area of research data is the consortium Text+ from the context of the Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur (National Research Data Infrastructure; NFDI), which is developing an infrastructure for language- and text-based data and is initially focusing on digital collections, lexical resources, and editions. Also of relevance to Romance studies are general humanities projects such as CLARIAH-DE and its predecessor projects CLARIN and DARIAH-DE , including the research data repositories DARIAH-DE Repository and the TextGrid Repository . An initiative specific to Romance studies is the directory of research data on the information platform romanistik.de . The Specialised Information Service for Romance Studies (FID Romanistik) provides an information and support service . The series of blog posts published since 2020 by the Digital Romance Studies Working Group (AG Digitale Romanistik ) places a special focus on the sustainable handling of research data in accordance with the FAIR principles. open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) References Hornung, C., von Deylen, W., Tannous, I., & Wonke-Stehle, J. (2017, February 9). Auswertung der Umfrage des FID Romanistik zu Open Access in der Romanistik. Romanistik-Blog - Das Blog des Fachinformationsdienstes. https://blog.fid-romanistik.de/2017/02/09/auswertung-der-umfrage-des-fid-romanistik-zu-open-access-in-der-romanistik/ Hornung, C., & Trapp, M. (2018). Open Access-Publizieren in der Romanistik: Standortbestimmung und Perspektiven. Romanistik-Blog - Das Blog des Fachinformationsdienstes. https://blog.fid-romanistik.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/OA-Workshop-Protokoll-SUBHH-11-2017.pdf Müller, C. (2020). Elektronisches Publizieren und Open Access: Die Perspektive Lateinamerikas. B. i. t. Online, 23 (4), 374–380. https://www.b-i-t-online.de/heft/2020-04-fachbeitrag-mueller.pdf Schepers, L. (2024). Umfrageergebnisse: Romanistisches Publizieren in frühen Karrierephasen. Romanistik-Blog – Das Blog des Fachinformationsdienstes. blog.fid-romanistik.de/2024/05/30/umfrageergebnisse-romanistisches-publizieren-in-fruehen-karrierephasen/ Schöch, C., Rißler-Pipka, N., Mühlschlegel, U., Gerstenberg, A., & Ehrlicher, H. (2017). Open Access und Forschungsdaten. Ein Positionspapier der AG Digitale Romanistik. In Mitteilungsheft Frühjahr 2017 (pp. 50–59). Deutscher Romanistenverband. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3834226 Further Reading Agnetta, M. (2019). Wie closed darf open access sein? / Eine Momentaufnahme der Publikationskultur in der deutschen Romanistik. Digitalkulturen/Cultures Numériques. Herausforderungen Und Interdisziplinäre Forschungsperspektiven/Enjeux et Perspectives Interdisciplinaire , 16, 33–50. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839442159-002 [ Open Access Preprint at Romanistik-Blog ] Graf, D., Fadeeva, Y., & Falkenstein-Feldhoff, K. (Eds.). (2020). Bücher im Open Access: Ein Zukunftsmodell für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften? Verlag Barbara Budrich. https://doi.org/10.17185/duepublico/72237 Hornung, C (2022). Open Access in der Romanistik – Coffee Lecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRLDzIeLLc Nonnenmacher, K. (2015). Die Zeitschrift als Idee. Einladung an Leser und Autoren. Romanische Studien, 1 , 5–24. https://www.romanischestudien.de/index.php/rst/issue/view/1 Schöch, C. (2020). Was heißt und zu welchem Ende publiziert man im Open Access? Open Access Week 2020, Universitätsbibliothek Trier. https://christofs.github.io/publ/#/ | Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RQy4wtYls0 Söllner, K., & Mittermaier, B. (2017). Praxishandbuch Open Access . de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110494068 Bearbeitung der Inhalte der Seite: Christoph Hornung (Stand: Juni 2024)....
