The four renowned academic journals of the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies are now available online and free-of-charge. Every Internet user can now access the full content of the GIGA Journal Family at no cost, which means that the reach of the journals is now significantly greater.

GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, 09.06.2009

Through the Open Access publications, the GIGA is ensuring increased exchange with academics from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

"They can now take part in discussions much more easily," said GIGA President Robert Kappel. "That is very important. As an area studies institute we want to do research not only about but also with the various areas."

The online publication project is being carried out in cooperation with Hamburg University Press, the online publisher at the Hamburg State and University Library. This guarantees the inclusion of the GIGA journals in all of the key academic and library search engines. Using these library services, users can use keywords to search the journals and access full-text articles.

"We could have simply posted the journals on our homepage," said Dr. Andreas Holtz, the GIGA's Open Access project coordinator. "But we wanted to make sure that users could find the information more easily and more systematically, which is what this cooperation enables."

The director of the Carl von Ossietzky Hamburg State and University Library, Prof. Dr. Gabriele Beger, is pleased with the result.

"I'm glad that we have been able to use our expertise to support academic work through this joint project. It represents a future-oriented expansion of the library's services and is a practical application of the Open Access idea."

The print editions of the four journals will continue to be published alongside the new online versions. The journals' current circulation numbers range from 400 to 1000.

"We're expecting an initial decrease in print subscriptions as a result of the online publications," said Holtz. "But because of the global visibility of the journals, we're assuming that in the long term the number of print subscriptions will actually rise."

The online publication of the GIGA journals is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Open Access democratises the results of academic research undertaken with the support of public funds.

The GIGA Journal Family can be found online at http://www.giga-journal-family.org. It is composed of four established social science journals focused on the GIGA's research regions:

Africa Spectrum
Journal of Politics in Latin America
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell
Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs

Access to the four GIGA journals: http://www.giga-journal-family.org

Contact:
Dr. Andreas Holtz, Open Access Project Coordinator
Tel.: +49-040-428 25-536
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The GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies is the largest German research institute for area and comparative area studies and is also among the largest in Europe. Its research focuses on political, economic and social developments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Interregional linkages and global themes are incorporated within this research.