Academic publisher De Gruyter, Germany, has announced that with its new Open Access model, some 45,000 e-dition titles from the publishing house's backlist can be made freely accessible. Customers can purchase an e-book in the same standard as a work produced normally through De Gruyter's e-dition program for €1,500. The book is then made freely accessible at De Gruyter Online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.
This new Open Access offering is directed first and foremost at libraries and research institutes, and a discount is offered when multiple titles are purchased simultaneously. Yet individuals can also take advantage of this offer. Authors, for example, can choose to make their previously published works available as Open Access. The new Open Access model is available for all publications released in 2004 or earlier and which are not available in any 'Best Of' packages.
At the beginning of April De Gruyter began offering 100 selected titles from its e-dition program at the crowdfunding platform www.unglue.it, so that they can be made accessible worldwide as Open Access books.