Prof. Dieter Stein's Welcome Speech - OA MPG - Max-Planck ...

Open Access: Towards a new publication culture in a knowledge society.
Welcome to Berlin6 at Duesseldorf
Dieter Stein, Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf, Germany
Welcome to 6th conference in the Berlin6 series, welcome to Heinrich-Heine-
Universität, welcome from all of us, who are putting on this conference at the behest
and with the financial support of Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, in particular its digital
library, today here represented by Max Bruch, Anja Lengenfelder and by Jürgen
Renn, the science historian from Max-Planck Gesellschaft.
This meeting, with some 300 participants from all continents, takes place at an
interesting point in time: it collocates with a larger crisis in market economy and
finance. Sometimes historical events conspire as if there was a mastermind. Maybe
there is one. Such conspiracies are very suggestive of more abstract explanations.
Whatever it is, it appears irresistible to overlook the parallels between the two crises.
There may be more crises.
The reason for the existence of this meeting, part of the Berlin series of meetings, is
a crisis in publishing culture: whatever the exact nature of the market in the
publication business was, it lead to a skewed situation in many respects, no longer
acceptable from the point of view of the demands of a modern knowledge society in a
globalized world. To cite only two aspects: a highly selective accessability of research
results and an access to knowledge that is restricted to what is marketable and what
“monetizes”, as the modern term is. The result is a very selective participation in
scientific and cultural discourse.
The Open Access movement, in all its shapes, has made significant progress in
reconfiguring a new notion of the publication market, if that is what it is, a “market”.
This meeting looks at ways, tentative and groping, with trial and error, in some
respects, in which a new order of the discourse between researcher, research and
providing access to it can be worked out, taking in account the technical and legal
and economic aspects, as well as more fundamental tendencies, such as blurring the
boundaries between research and publication, access to primary data, developing

new and more modular styles of composition, of texts and rhetoric, congenial to the
medium. Being a linguist by academic birth, I may be forgiven for identifying a
genuinely linguistic issue here.
If I were to emphasize one macro-aim amongst the several scientific aims of this
meeting, it is to find ways of making it more attractive for the rank-and-file of
scientists to use this channel, to the extent to which it is already available. The
conference is also changing minds, about making it attractive for scholars, for the
individual scholar to use this channel, about what the next steps to take in that
direction are, to change the movement from top-down to a more and more bottom-up
direction. It is not only about taking the horses to the waters, about taking steps that
makes it attractive for the horses to now drink. The instrument must be right,
appropriate and attractive for the individual scholar. Above all, there must be, in the
academy and of the public, a perception that the instrument exists, and that it works.
It is entirely clear that there is a lot of resistance to the Open Access, much of it
simply due to ignorance, and to murky premonitions of a new dark age caused by a
loss of print culture. Ultimately, there will be a redefinition of the relativities between
digital and print publication. There will be a place for the latter: the advent of mass
literacy did not lead to the disappearance of the spoken word, so the advent of the
digital age will not lead to the disappearance of print culture. For all the intermediate,
transitory and compromise solutions, such as the Green Road, the ultimate
developmental stage will be the Golden Road, with print on demand. To which extent
it will be reached in all sciences and for all communicative purposes in knowledge
management will have to be seen. There will evolve a sorting out of functions, not in
a competitive, but a collaborative way, but not one determined by monetizeability.
There are people with very different views in this respect, but I may be forgiven for
ruthlessly exploiting this opportunity and say that in my view scientific knowledge, as
part of cultural knowledge, must not be conceptualized as a commodity, but is a
public good, just like the open air or drinking water. Just as we must not
conceptualize universities with the same categories that are applicable to bycicle
factories, the knowledge we take care of and which is entrusted to us by society for
us to take care of, must not be treated as if it was a sales commodity.

Just as there are no free lunches in digital publishing, as my Yale colleague Stephen
Anderson, who is here today, keeps reminding us, there are no free conferences. We
have to thank many people for making this conference possible, most of whom are
represented here today.
The main benefactor has been the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen, who is taking a
leading role in the field. So we have to thank The Ministry for Innovation, Science,
Research and Technology of the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen, this morning here
represented by Dr. Bode, the mastermind and monitor behind many initiatives in
digital publishing, who has not only helped finance this meeting, but to whom we also
owe permanent encouragement, practical help and intellectual input.
We thank the Hochschulbibliothekszentrum Cologne, the service provider for several
of our ejournals, including the ejournal portal of the Linguistic Society of America,
represented her by its director, Dr. Olligs, ZB Med, represented her by Dr. Korwitz. I
should add that both the Hochschulbibliothekszentrum Cologne and ZBMed are
holding satellite meetings here today, as does the Public Knowledge project, on more
specialized issue of digital Open Access publishing.
The University of Duesseldorf, Heinrich-Heine University. Prof. Piper, the newly
elected Rektor Magnificus is unable to attend in person, due to a long pre-arranged
trip to the US. He has asked me to extend his welcome to this conference and
pledges his full support for this movement, not only on this occasion but also for our
future efforts in the field.
-
We have received further support from The Dean of the Philosophische Fakultät,
represented here today by Dean v. Alemann, The Society of Sponsors of Heinrich-
Heine-University from industry and business have also contributed,
the Industrieklub Düsseldorf, the meeting place of industrialists and leaders of the
local and internal business community whose guest we are today, The Computing
Center of the University (represented by Prof. Olbrich and several of his staff), by
SUN systems, the Weekly “Die Zeit”, Kopernikus and Academicus Verlag, both
Open Access Publishers.

Now, there MUST be people who have contributed and who I have forgotten to
mention, - please accept a blanket apology for now. I will make more specific amends
later.
Meetings need to be organized. This meeting owes many of its ideas and its
pragmatic alive-hood to Cornelius Puschmann, our conference manager, head of
operations, who at the same time runs his own panel here, and, still at the same time,
has also just turned in his PhD thesis with me (on blogs). He is joined by students of
my department: Kim Barthel, Gloria Pagouras, Sebastian Groth, and Gero Brümmer,
plus a host of others, who have put in a lot of work, including Saturday, Sunday and
night shifts to make this conference happen:
As a last item of pragmatic organization, the next meetings in this series are
scheduled to take place in Paris (2009) and Beijing (2010).