[BOAI] Press Information: De Gruyter acquires Versita and becomes third-biggest international Open Access publisher

[Iryna Kuchma]

[Forwarded message from Richard Poynder via GOAL - Global Open Access List
(Successor of AmSci)]

Of possible interest to list members.

>>

For immediate release.****


*De Gruyter acquires Versita and becomes third-biggest international Open
Access publisher*

Berlin, January 9, 2012****

De Gruyter, the Berlin-based academic publishing company, is acquiring the
publisher Versita. As a service provider to academic organizations and
bodies, Versita publishes over 230 journals on Open Access basis, i.e.
outside the traditional subscription model. With this acquisition De
Gruyter is substantially increasing its presence in an important future
market of academic publishing. The complete staff of Versita is being
retained in this take-over.****

“The purchase of Versita is a logical continuation of our publishing
strategy of recent years, which involves giving both our authors and our
customers an optimum range of publishing options”, says Dr. Sven Fund, the
Managing Director of De Gruyter. “For us, the most important issue is that
our publications have high-quality content, and not how they are financed.”*
***

As of 2012 De Gruyter will be merging the newly acquired Open Access
journals with its traditional subscription-based and freely sold content on
one electronic platform, thus providing researchers with an outstanding
service: users will have a powerful search interface for searching all
academic articles from journals, books and databanks in which the articles
have been published, independently of the various business models.****

“For some time now, Open Access has been an important element of academic
publishing. With the integration of all Versita content under a joint
publishing administration on the new De Gruyter platform, we are now
realizing the principle in our program,” continues Fund.****

In the future, De Gruyter’s Open Access activities will be managed by Jacek
Ciesielski as Vice President Open Access. Ciesielski founded Versita in
2001 and has been expanding the enterprise ever since. “Now that we have
joined forces with De Gruyter, I look forward to further developing and
internationalizing my activities together with De Gruyter”, comments
Ciesielski.****

* *

*Contact:*

Ulrike Lippe****

Manager Public Relations****

Phone +49(0)30-260 05 153****

ulrike.lippe at degruyter.com****

** **

** **

*De Gruyter*: The independent academic publishing house De Gruyter can look
back on a history spanning over 260 years.  The publishing group with
headquarters in Berlin and Boston annually publishes over 800 new titles in
the humanities, medicine, science and law and more than 230 journals and
digital media. http://www.degruyter.com/****

* *

*Versita* publishes about 250 own and third-party scholarly journals across
many disciplines. Its journal portfolio takes in 25 subscription-based
journals, including a group of Central European Journals in 8 disciplines.
Versita also publishes over 230 society journals, which are available
through Versita Open (www.versitaopen.com), one of the largest Open Access
platforms in the world. The company was established in 2001 by Jacek
Ciesielski. http://www.versita.com/****

* *

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