Open Access at the ZfL

As a member of the Leibniz Association and a signatory of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, the Center for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin supports free access to publicly funded research findings on the internet.

Since 2022, the ZfL issues the open access book series “Literatur- und Kulturforschung” [Literary and Cultural Studies] at Wallstein in golden open access (first publication in open access). Since 2024, the articles of the dictionary The 20th Century in Basic Concepts are successively published in golden open access in the Schwabe Verlag’s e-library. Many other monographs and edited volumes are also openly accessible directly after their publication. Also, the online publication series Interjekte, the e-journal Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte (FIB), and the contributions to the ZfL BLOG are published in golden open access.

ZfL contributions from books published with Wilhelm Fink and Kulturverlag Kadmos are made available for Green Open Access two years after their primary publication.

As of December 2025, the ZfL has become a supporting member of the Open Library of Humanities (OLH). Through this partnership in place, the ZfL is demonstrating its support of diamond open access, which provides free access to scientific publications without charging readers or authors. OLH is an award-winning, academic-led publisher of 34 diamond open access journals based at Birkbeck, University of London. The platform covers its costs through contributions from an international library consortium. OLH helps to build an academic publishing ecosystem based on equity and on a vision of academic research as a global public good.

The ZfL, in cooperation with the Specialized Information Services for general and comparative literature (FID AVL), makes its Open Access publications available in the specialized repository CompaRe on the publications server of the University Library Frankfurt a.M. The repository is continuously updated.

Search in the specialized repository CompaRe

• Nachbarschaften
  an anthology on »neighborhood«
• Verfolgung und Auswanderung deutschsprachiger Sprachforscher 1933–1945
  a data base – founded by Utz Maas – with biographies and academic profiles of linguists, who were persecuted for racial or political reasons during the National Socialism period
  
• Bioconcepts. The Origin and Definition of Biological Concepts
  an interactive, online database on the history of biological concepts and related theories
• Materials for a Historic Dictionary on Interdisciplinary Conceptual History
  using Wiki-software, the website platform provides a collection of materials for collaboration on the dictionary of conceptual history
• The Interdisciplinary Forum SynergieWissen [Interdisziplinäres Forum SynergieWissen]
  a wiki-based forum providing an interactive space for exchange between researchers and artists, SynergyFeatures with debates on current research questions, a lab for the development of experimental ideas, as well as a blog containing information on upcoming events of the forum, and much more