The oa.finder is an orientation aid for academics from all disciplines looking for the right publication venue and format for their academic work.
Whether a scientific article, monograph, edited volume or conference proceedings - the oa.finder makes it quick and easy to search for the right journal or scientific publisher.
The oa.finder contains publication-relevant information on around 58,000 international journals. The service for searching for academic publishers in the German speaking region that publish open access books is currently being developed and has been available since January 2025.
With the search results from the oa.finder, scientists can make informed decisions about which scientific journal or scientific publisher is best suited. They receive information on citation metrics, ratings and rankings of a journal, the thematic focus of the publishers and journals, the publication costs (Article Processing Charge - APC and Book Processing Charge - BPC) as well as on transformative agreements and existing publication funds at the scientific institutions.
In the medium term, the oa.finder will be developed into a central information and research platform for academic publishing. In addition to the search for academic book publishers and journals, information on aspects of academic publishing will be provided: Funding, licensing, copyright and publishing contract law, visibility, metadata, publication processes.
The oa.finder was created as part of the BMBF-funded open-access.network project and is developed and operated by Bielefeld University Library.
Publicly available data is collected, processed and linked for journal searches. The basis is the metadata from the EZB - Electronic Journals Library, supplemented by information from, among others: OpenAPC, DOAJ, Scopus, Journal Checker Tool, and oa.atlas.
The search options for academic book publishers are based on a data collection developed by the Bielefeld University Library and collected in a survey of publishers.