APE - Academic Publishing in Europe: Researchers, Librarians and Publishers

Dr. Karl-Peter Winters (German Association of Publishers and Booksellers, Frankfurt, Germany) opened the Fifth International Conference on Academic Publishing in Europe (APE 2010) “Researchers, Librarians and Publishers”. Dr. Winters highlighted that 2009 was yet another important year in the transition to digital publishing, with the topics of reading devices and content carriers gaining more and more importance. The Kindle reading device, for example, was launched by Amazon and in December 2009 Amazon US sold more eBooks than printed books for the first time. Another example is Google Books, a content carrier, which continuously accumulates new and already printed content. Book publishers, and German book publishers in particular, are called upon to work hard to prevent content from becoming subordinate to digital carriers and devices, with companies like Amazon and Google achieving a monopoly (or, at least, oligopoly) over the distribution of books. Dr. Winters indicated that he hoped that the libreka! portal of the German publishers could serve as a model for publishers to distribute content independently. In his opening remarks, Prof. Michael Mabe (CEO, International Association of STM Publishers, The Hague and Oxford, UK) welcomed all participants. He highlighted how the ongoing digital transition had moved the issue of copyright to the centre of the debate (e.g., Google Book Settlement) and how it has also contributed to the vigorous debate on the issue of open access to scholarly literature, with the Scholarly Publishing Round Table in the United States as the most recent effort of finding a sustainable solution. In his opening keynote, Prof. Dr. Matthias Kleiner (President, German Research Foundation (DFG), Bonn, Germany) spoke about the theme In the Interest of Science – The Priority Initiative “Digital Information” of the Alliance Partner Organisations. The priority initiative shows that German research funders and organisations are assuming an active role in designing and shaping the digital information infrastructure. Six areas are of particularly importance: national licensing deals, open access, national hosting strategy, research data, legal frameworks and virtual research environments. Prof. Kleiner stressed that the digital revolution has changed the basic conditions of scientific research, including fields