The Frankfurt Book Fair has shifted the attention of the publishing environment to books, bringing together publishers from all over the world and facilitating international debate on current events and developments affecting the industry.

Book publishers of all sizes, service providers, and scholars gather to discuss not only the inspiration and debates on literature and expression, but also the challenges that the industry is currently facing and how we can overcome them together.

ScienceOpen offers institutions, independent publishers, university presses, and researchers cutting-edge technology as well as a variety of book publishing solutions and services.

At ScienceOpen, we are committed to matching digital solutions with varied publishing industry needs and, at the same time, addressing these needs and challenges through innovation and partnerships, as exemplified by our recent collaboration with Wachholtz Verlag. For today’s blog, we interviewed Hanno Klöver, editor at Wachholtz Verlag, to delve deeper into their experiences and workflows in the digital age.

Interview

• Could you please tell us a little bit about your publishing house and its mission?

Wachholtz is a modern academic publisher with a long history. We focus on publications in the field of the humanities (in particular history, archeology, literature, philosophy, geography). Our aim is to produce books and journals according to the highest standards regarding content and aesthetics and to provide authors with the utmost support for their publications. Being future-oriented, Wachholtz focuses on the open access model to enable worldwide visibility and free access to our author’s publications.

• How does your publishing model work, particularly in the context of open access books?

We typically offer the Gold Open Access model, which means that the monograph or article is first published with open access. This can happen simultaneously with a print edition or exclusively in digital form. What is important here is that quality assurance must be guaranteed in the same way as one is used to with print products.

A publication in open access may also come after an initial print-publication.

• Could you explain how you address concerns about quality and peer review in open access publishing?

We set high standards in quality for open access publishing, just as we do for our print products.
As a publisher, we need to confirm that a manuscript has gone through a peer review process. Before acceptance of a manuscript, its quality and the qualifications of the author/editor will be checked. Also, a written confirmation from the editor is requested, to ensure that there has been an independent peer review carried out by experts.

• What types of support do you offer to authors who choose to publish with your open access model?

During the entire publication process, the author can expect personal consultation and support. Every series, volume or article, including metadata, will be registered with Crossref, the biggest and most well-known network for open access publications and other relevant databases. Through Crossref a direct object identifier (DOI) will be assigned to each title so that every book or article can be easily found and cited. Currently, a transparent overview of the number of views of open access publications is provided via the integration of Altmetric on the publication landing page on ScienceOpen.

Open access publications are hosted on ScienceOpen as well as on Wachholtz’s website.

• Can you share some success stories or examples of authors who have benefited from your open access publishing model?

„KI und Kultur“ was recently published at Wachholtz, a book about the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence in culture. Due to its highly relevant digital topic, the book lend itself to being published in open access.

BioLex”: A biographical lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein has been published in open access after it had run out of print. Since 2020 it is available again, freely accessible, and has seen many users/readers since then.

• KI & Kultur: Chimäre oder Chance? : Voraussetzungen – Anwendungen – Potentiale
• BioLex Digital : Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein und Lübeck

• What do you see as the future of open access book publishing, and how do you envision your role in it?

We think that the open access model increasingly becomes the standard in academic publishing. So, we point out the advantages of open access publishing like a wider outreach and potential impact to everyone publishing with us. We aim at providing the best support and information for authors so that they can comfortably share their research in open access.

• Thank you very much Hanno, and we hope to see the Wachholtz collection growing on ScienceOpen!