Completion of project to retro-digitize Archäologische Informationen

Abstract

The article reports on the completion of the project started in 2013 to retro digitize all articles in the Archäologische Informationen journal, which had previously only been published in print, and to make them available in Open Access. Counting the first issues as well, which are difficult to obtain nowadays as printed volumes (1972 ff.), 86 % of all articles ever published in the journal are now freely available online with the explicit permission of the authors. Archäologische Informationen is thus one of the first major German archaeological journals to have completed its retro-digitization so comprehensively. The complete bibliographic recording of the individual articles in the appropriate library catalogues and the possibility to search the full text now make it much simpler and quicker for readers to search through the digital journal than the analogue versions. The project affords authors in older volumes the same chance of being found and the same visibility for their valuable articles as more recently published contributions. As an experiential report, the article details the effort involved and the successes, and can serve to assist the project planning of similar projects.