Category Archives: E-media

E-media, Events, Open Science, Science

Open Access: Yes – but not at any cost!

Open Access Week 2024

Open Access Week 2024 – Change my mind!

The panelists agree on the fact that “Open Access is important and the right way” – but not at all costs.

Adherents of Chemnitz University of Technology on the fields of research and teaching, junior scientists and students met the Open Science Team last week within the International Open Access Week

On Monday, Magdalena Lemke from the Open Science Initiative of the Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences started within an event of the student initiative “Critical Introduction Days” (KRETA) with a sceptic question and a reflected answer: “Science for All? Open Science and capitalist structures”. Within the workshop, not only interesting information about objectives of Open Science, the history of Open Access and current developments were presented – but also critical topics like high publication charges and the re-emerging monopoly position of some publishers were intensively discussed.

The day after, the Open Science Team made the more or less provocative assumption “All research results shall be open to the public. CHANGE MY MIND!”. This statement provoked discussions – some were immediately convinced, others questioned this assumption and talked about barriers and doubts. In that way, a valuable exchange resulted enabling a mutual insight in the publication culture and practice of different subjects on the one hand and in the (Open Science) services of the Library on the other.

On Thursday, the Open Science Team met with invited speakers and interested persons for a controversial discussion. The contributions included criticism towards excessive charges for Open Access articles as well as the partly deficient quality of peer review-procedures applying to Open Access- as well as to Non-Open Access-journals. In particular, the business practices of the Open Access-publisher MDPI was criticized. The mass sending of emails to authors inviting for publication, editorial activities or reviews were judged as especially annoying. However, the publisher also includes recognized journals with high impact and DOAJ-Seal (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) as quality label. For this reason, a particularly comprehensive check of the respective journal is recommendable.

Extremely high article processing charges such as raised by Nature may exclude certain user groups from publication. In this context, the publishers argue with their high editorial expenses. Research results may be made openly accessible currently also without costs on preprintservers. However, in general they are not reviewed. In addition, publishers and/ or Academies of Sciences may offer scientific publications of particularly high quality in the form of special editions or generate added value by abstracts. The particularly challenging publishing conditions for doctoral students were aborded as well. Severe time constraints may force for selection of publishers with short review delays. A comment from the audience addressed also cumulative academic works which have to be published in compliance with legal regulations. In the end, the interesting discussion had to be terminated for the moment due to time restrictions. The event was a successful start for a mutual exchange which has to be continued in any case.

The dedication of awards to Open Access-pioneers at Chemnitz University of Technology was the conclusion and the highlight of the activities within the Open Access Week. Awards in different categories rewarded the engagement on different paths to Open Access: the Green Way (publications in repositories, 2023), the Golden Way (publications in Gold-Open Access-journals, 2023) and the Diamond Way (management of the Open Access-journal “Journal for Semiotics”) being published as print by Stauffenburg Publishing. The editors, Professur Fricke and Dr. Siefkes, were awarded for their successful negotiations for time-shift Open Access-publishing of the editions.

Awarded as well was the first University Library-funded Open Access monograph “Deutsche Jüd_innen in Chile: Bürger:innenwerdung im Kontext von historischen Verflechtungen und Rassismusinformationen“ by Dr. Ana Maria Troncoso. This book will be shortly available at Transcript Publishing with the license CC BY 4.0.

We thank all participants for the interesting conversations, opinions and discussions and are looking forward to jointly further promote and enhance Open Science.

E-media, Service

New E-Media 2024

Photo: Katrin Pötschke / University Library Chemnitz

Whether in the library, on campus or from home the e-offers (e-books, e-journals, databases) of the university library are always available for you. We have revised our digital offerings for the year 2024 as well. We would like to inform you here about innovations and changes in this area.

We have compiled all information on the expansion of the e-book range as well as innovations and changes in licensing for you in a structured overview.

Below we would like to inform you about some of them in more detail.

DEAL Elsevier
Since 2024, Chemnitz University of Technology has been participating in the DEAL agreement with Elsevier. This provides reading access to almost the entire Elsevier journal portfolio, including the Cell Press and The Lancet titles. Furthermore, the costs for open access publications in Elsevier journals are covered by the University Library. Further information on the agreement can also be found on the University Library website.

LGBTQ+ Source
Relevant for several disciplines is the EBSCO database "LGBTQ+ Source", which has been licensed since January 2024. As the authoritative database for LGBTQ+ studies, it offers academic and popular LGBTQ+ publications in full text as well as historically important primary sources. The database also contains a special LGBTQ+ thesaurus with thousands of topic-related terms that can be used for further literature research.

AIS-e-Library
Thanks to a co-operation with the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, all TUC members have access to the AIS e-Library again this year. The AIS-e-Library is an comprehensive portal containing full texts from journals and proceedings of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). Further information on access can be found in a blog post.

CAS SciFinder-n Discovery Platform Academic
Since 2024, access to the CAS SciFinder Discovery Platform has been possible. In addition to SciFinder-n, this also contains the tools CAS Formulus and CAS Analytical Methods, which enable the search for formulations and analytical methods. Access is provided via the existing SciFinder-n interface.

We wish you a lot of pleasure in learning, researching and browsing through our new e-offers.

E-media, Service

A new one is here! Access to the AIS-e-Library database

AIS e-Library start page

Screenshot of the AIS e-Library start page. Marked are the simple search and the possibility of searching by browsing.

Since the beginning of the year, all TUC members have had access to a new business information systems database. Thanks to a cooperation with the Faculty of Economics and Business Adminnistration, the University Library was able to make all contents of the AIS-e-Library accessible.

Den Beitrag weiterlesen A new one is here! Access to the AIS-e-Library database →

E-media, Service

New: Access to DIN-VDE standards campus-wide possible

The DIN VDE standards are regulations for various areas of electrical engineering. These include, for example, power systems, power conductors and insulating materials, measuring, controlling & testing, as well as machines, converters, installation material, switchgear, consumer appliances, work equipment and information technology.

Until now, the standards of the VDE (Verband der Elektrotechnik | Elektronik | Informationstechnik e. V.) could only be offered on one computer in the library as a single-user licence. This has now changed.

Den Beitrag weiterlesen New: Access to DIN-VDE standards campus-wide possible →

E-media, Service

New E-Media 2023

Photo: Katrin Pötschke / University Library Chemnitz

Whether in the library, on campus or from home the e-offers (e-books, e-journals, databases) of the university library are always available for you. We have revised our digital offerings for the year 2023 as well. Herewith we would like to inform you about innovations and changes in this area.

We have compiled all information on the expansion of the e-book range as well as innovations and changes in licensing for you in a structured overview.

Below we would like to inform you about some of them in more detail.

Den Beitrag weiterlesen New E-Media 2023 →

E-media, Nicht kategorisiert

Nautos – the new standards database

As we have received a number of enquiries, we have compiled and illustrated the most important information on using the Nautos standards database in this blog post.

The previous blog post on switching from Perinorm to Nautos remains valid, of course.

Nautos, like Perinorm before it, can be accessed via our website. The databases are listed there under the menu item “Search & Find”.

The next click on “databases” takes you to DBIS, our database information system. All our licensed databases are listed there, sorted by subject. Nautos can be found in the category General/Interdisciplinary as well as in the subject areas Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Control Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering and some more. You can also search for the name of the database in the menu on the left.

Then there is a detailed description of Nautos as well as the “Link to the search” which, after a short info on the licence conditions, leads to the database. Nautos provides access to all standards with a DIN classification as well as the VDI standards.

In the database, the dashboard is displayed first. Here you will find current notes, version peculiarities (as Nautos is still in development) and useful tips for searching. On the left of the menu is the icon that leads to the search.

A special feature of this database is the Intelligent Search – Nautos can therefore provide useful results with the document number as well as with search terms. Below the search bar there are further search fields, for example to search only for currently valid standards or to link different search terms via the dynamic search.

Unfortunately, errors can still occur in the database – for example, documents that should be available in full text (visible by a blue puzzle symbol in the “Document” column) are not accessible or are not displayed at all. If you notice this, please let us know so that we can bring it to the attention of the Beuth publishers.