New Open Access Journal newLIS in discussion

Finally I also joined the discussion about the idea of a new German open access journal in Library and Information Science (working title: newLIS). My colleague Karsten Schuldt described the ongoing discussion and its background in our Blog at HTW Chur (InfoWissChurBlog).

The main question is if we need another journal that could challenge the existing commercial journals.  The important German journal Bibliotheksdienst will be published by de Gruyter – and they set an embargo of 12 months (instead of 3 months so far). There are of course some independent Open Access Journals like LIBREAS or the Swiss RESSI, published mainly in French by our colleagues from Geneva. Do we need another one or should we support these existing platforms? I decided now to declare that I am ready to participate at the discussions and preparations for newLIS and not only talk about Open Access. I am convinced that it is very important that the new project is also supported by institutions like Universities (and their libraries) and the Universities of Applied Sciences.

There will be a good occasion for further discussions at our Infocamp in Chur on September 7-8: #icamp12. Who else is ready to join the discussion? You may contribute on the newLIS blog or in the Open Knowledge Pad.