Repository Policy

How to share – Repository Policy for books and book chapters

The dissemination of knowledge is what we work for every day. That’s why we want to support our authors in letting people know about the work that they have published. At the same time the rights of authors and the publisher need to be respected.

The easiest way of giving people access to research is to publish it Open Access. That’s why we offer a Gold Open Access option under a CC-BY license to authors. Learn more.

If you have not arranged to make your work Open Access with us, please read the following guidelines about how to share your work.

Sharing via a DOI-Link

If you want to let people know about your work you can always share a link to the final published version. In this case you should use the DOI-Link as it will always securely direct people to the correct page even if the website URL would change.

What is a DOI? DOI means digital object identifier. Each published eBook receives such an identifying code when it is published on the Peter Lang website. DOIs are distributed by independent registration agencies such as CrossRef. A DOI identifies whole books, single chapters and sometimes even smaller items such as graphics. You can find the respective link on each product page. Example: http://dx.doi.org/10.3726/b10435

Sharing full texts (e.g. PDFs)

There are different stages of development of your manuscript:

Submitted Manuscript Under Review: This is the version of the manuscript that you have submitted and that does not show any modifications by any third party.

Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM): The version of the manuscript that has been accepted for publication. This version may include revisions resulting from peer review but may be subject to further input by Peter Lang.

Version of Record: The version that is formally published in the layout of Peter Lang.

Depending on the version of the respective manuscript, you have different options to share without infringing copyrights. Textbooks are excluded from this repository policy. Please always contact us in these cases.

If your work has not been made Open Access with us, you may release these different versions of the manuscript according to the following guidelines:

Download the Repository Policy

What is a repository? An academic repository stores published content and makes it available for users. A repository can have the purpose of archiving all publications originating from a certain university, of a certain subject field or scientific publications in general.

What is an embargo period? This is the timeframe that needs to be respected before any material can be made available for free and that enables us as a publisher to cover incurred costs by sales.

What does CC-BY / CC-BY-NC-ND mean? If your book is Open Access, we will have agreed on an Open Access license for this purpose (Creative Commons License).

CC-BY means that users of the material shall give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses the licensee or his/ her use.

A CC-BY-NC-ND license further limits sharing and usage of the material. The material may not be used for commercial purposes. If a user remixes, transforms, or builds upon the material, he/she may not distribute the modified material.

To take into account when sharing:

Please include a statement on the published material such as:

This is a

You want to share a whole book?

We offer the possibility to put whole books on Open Access that have been published before 2017. In this case a flat fee applies. Please contact us if you would like to know more about this option.

Your funding requires a publication outside this policy?

As a service-oriented publisher, Peter Lang offers flexible solutions to suit authors’ and funders’ individual needs. If you would like to discuss other CC license types or a secondary publication outside of this policy, please don’t hesitate to contact us. In many cases we are open to accomodate the requirements of funding bodies such as the Wellcome Trust, FWF and others.

What can I share on social media channels?

Please feel free to post a link to the book or chapter, cite the bibliographic data and post an abstract. The upload of full texts (e.g. PDFs) is not allowed, because most social media channels (e.g. Facebook, ResearchGate, academia.edu) have a commercial purpose. You are allowed to share up to 20 copies of the accepted manuscript version of one chapter via e-mail if someone requests it. Please make sure that it includes a link to the version of record and is marked with the statement “for personal use only.”