The agreement represents the largest eBook deal ever to have been signed in Germany, and is, in fact, a national license for all English-language chemistry, materials science and medicine titles of the copyright years 2005 – 2008. Concretely, this means that all researchers, students and staff at all publicly funded universities, technical colleges and research institutions will have access to the content included in the deal. The agreement was made possible by support from the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Uwe Rosemann, TIB Director and Chairman of the Steering Group, Leibniz Library Network for Research Information (Goportis), said: "We at TIB are delighted to be able to offer a wide-ranging national license package of Springer content, now extended by eBooks, to German institutions. We have had a lot of positive feedback from the scientific community on this service. In addition, TIB and ZB MED are, for the first time, able to offer publisher content which is subject to standardized licensing conditions. This added value was made possible by our cooperation within the Leibniz Library Network for Research Information (Goportis Licensing)."
Ulrich Korwitz, Director of the ZB MED, stressed the particular importance of the agreement for medicine: "The eBooks related to medicine which are available through the DFG national license negotiated by ZB MED include essential scientific reference works, which are now easily available to all researchers in biomedicine at no charge to them."
"We are very pleased that the DFG and the library negotiators have selected such a large amount of eBook content. All publicly funded institutions of higher education in Germany will benefit from this agreement. The DFG, in making this selection, took into account not only the highest standards in terms of relevance and quality, but also the technical quality of the information systems available. We are proud that our eBooks fulfill these significant requirements," said Derk Haank, CEO, Springer Science+Business Media.
The German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB; www.tib-hannover.de) and the German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED; www.zbmed.de), together with the German National Library of Economics/Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW; www.zbw.eu), form the Leibniz Library Network for Research Information (www.goportis.de). The network cooperates on issues of full text service, licenses, non-textual materials, digital preservation and open access. They bundle their activities concerning national licensing in a joint office, the Cooperative Office Goportis Licensing.
Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) is a leading global scientific publisher, delivering quality content through innovative information products and services. The company is also a trusted provider of local-language professional publications in Europe, especially in Germany and the Netherlands. In the science, technology and medicine (STM) sector, the group publishes around 2,000 journals and more than 6,500 new books a year, as well as the largest STM eBook Collection worldwide. Springer has operations in about 20 countries in Europe, the USA, and Asia, and more than 5,000 employees.
Starting in April you can register for Springer eBooks German National Licenses at www.nationallizenzen.de