recensio.net – review platform for European history – is a Europe-wide, multi-language platform for scholarly

review A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a content rating, ...

s of historical literature. Launched in January 2011, the platform is operated by three institutions: the

Bavarian State Library The Bavarian State Library (, abbreviated BSB, called ''Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis'' before 1919) in Munich is the central " Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the biggest universal and research libra ...

in Munich, the

German Historical Institute Paris The German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP) or Institut historique allemand (IHA) is an international research institute situated in Paris, France. Overview As one of eleven research institutes in humanities worldwide funded by the German Fed ...

, and the

Institute of European History The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, Germany, is an independent, public research institute that carries out and promotes historical research on the foundations of Europe in the early and late Modern period. Though autonomous i ...

in Mainz. It has been described by the media as an attempt of historians to "venture into the Web 2.0".

Concept

The aim of the platform is to answer a perceived restriction of the humanities in Europe, a widespread orientation on languages and national borders.Mathias Waha: ''Der Historiker und das Web 2.0'', in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2. Februar 2011, Feuilleton, p. 15.

erman Erman may refer to: Given name * Erman Bulucu (born 1989), Turkish footballer * Erman Eltemur (born 1993), Turkish karateka * Erman Güraçar (born 1974), Turkish footballer * Erman Kılıç (born 1983), Turkish footballer * Erman Kunter (born ...

/ref> Recensio.net attempts to promote and facilitate the exchange between and the scholarly discussion amongst European historians, primarily by making reviews of publications on European history more visible and easier to access. To accomplish that, all reviews published on recensio.net are available in

Open Access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

and searchable in full text. The

Munich supports the reviews with

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

and long-term archival storage. recensio.net acts as an Open Access aggregator. It brings together reviews of recent historical publications published in scholarly journals on one platform. The reviews deal with European history and may have been published both online or in print. All editorial offices of cooperating journals still work independently. Currently, the platform features review sections of more than forty historical journals from all over Europe, amongst them '' Reviews in History'' published by Britain's

Institute of Historical Research The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) is a British educational organisation providing resources and training for historical researchers. It is part of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London and is located at Senate Hou ...

(IHR) and the '' German Historical Institute London Bulletin''. On the second branch of the platform, authors of historical monographs and articles can present the core statements of their publications, thus putting them up for scholarly discussion. Users can comment on both reviews and presentations, and become involved in the discussion of current topics and approaches within the field of European history. In doing so, recensio.net aims to promote the ideas of

web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, a ...

amongst European historians. To overcome the language barrier, the platform uses three navigational languages (English, German and French), whereas reviews and presentations may be written in any European language. Currently, texts in more than ten different languages can be found on recensio.net. Since the institutionalisation of Specialised Information Services (FID), funded by the German Research Foundation, in 2014 several branches of recensio.net emerged on the same technical basis and with the same concept for regional history
recensio.regio
, classics
recensio.antiquitatis
, and art history
recension.artium
that offer reviews in open access in their respective fields.

Organising institutions

Online since January 2011, recensio.net is the result of a joint project of the

(BSB) Munich, the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

and the

Leibniz Institute of European History The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, Germany, is an independent, public research institute that carries out and promotes historical research on the foundations of Europe in the early and late Modern period. Though autonomous i ...

(IEG) Mainz, funded from 2008-2014 by the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

(DFG). Since 2017 the operations of recensio.net are continued in the sole responsibility of the Bavarian State Library. The editorial staff is located at the Centre for Electronic Publishing (ZEP), a unit of the BSB. On the occasion of the launch of recensio.net, the international conference "Scholarly communication in the digital age", took place in January 2011 at the Historisches Kolleg in Munich.

References

* Klaus Gantert: ''Elektronische Informationsressourcen für Historiker''. Berlin 2011, p. 331f. * Nicolai Hannig and Hiram Kümper: ''Rezensionen. Finden - Verstehen - Schreiben''. Schwalbach/Ts. 2012, p. 52-54. * Lilian Landes: ''Open Access und Geschichtswissenschaften – Notwendigkeit, Chancen, Probleme'', in: LIBREAS. Library Ideas, 14 (1/2009)
Online-Version

* Lilian Landes: ''Rezensieren im Zeitalter des Web 2.0. Das Rezensionsportal recensio.net'', in: Bibliotheksmagazin 1/2011, p. 22-25
Online-Version

* Enrico Natale: ''Recensio.net - Plateforme européenne de comptes rendus en histoire'', infoclio.ch (27 janvier 2011
Online-Version
* Mathias Waha: ''Der Historiker und das Web 2.0'', in:

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of ''SZ'' is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and ...

, 2. Februar 2011, Feuilleton, p. 15.

External links

Official website

University of Cologne

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Recensio.Net History websites of Germany