About the Repository

Policy / What is FID4SA-Repository?

FID4SA-Repository is the full-text server of FID4SA, the Specialised Information Service for South Asian Studies, and offers scholars worldwide the opportunity to make publications from the different fields of South Asian studies available online and at no costs, according to the principles of open access publishing. FID4SA-Repository is a service of the University Library of Heidelberg, and partly funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

The documents will be stored and their long-term availability guaranteed by using standardized addresses (URN, DOI) and metadata (OAI-PMH). They are also accessible through the German union catalogues and search engines. In this way you gain wide visibility for your texts. FID4SA-Repository supports the aims to the “Budapest Open Access Initiative” (BOAI) and the principles of Open Access.

The goal of the Open Access movement is to make scholarly articles freely available in digital form worldwide with minimal restrictions on their use. Self-Archiving and a new generation of open-access online journals (Self-Publishing) with peer-review are the ways to attain this goal.*Self-Archiving* refers to the depositing of postprints (documents which have already been published) and preprints (contributions which are intended for publication in a journal) in an institutional or discipline-specific open-access repository, e.g. FID4SA-Repository.

Further information on Open Access

According to the recommendations of the Wissenschaftsrat academics are encouraged to retain their right of posting the document on institutional repositories - if necessary after a certain retention period - in the copyright agreements with the publisher [see Empfehlungen zur digitalen Informationsversorgung durch Hochschulbibliotheken. Hrsg. v. Wissenschaftsrat, Greifswald 13. Juli 2001, (10.12.2001), S. 26]. Authors/Editors of electronic documents are responsible for complying with the applicable copyright and exploitation right.

How do I publish documents on FID4SA-Repository?

All documents will be uploaded, launched and made available by the FID4SA-Repository staff. To publish your documents on FID4SA-Repository, please contact the FID4SA-Repository team. In order to publish your work, we need your signed copyright agreement, your document in electronic format (PDF) and a brief abstract (max. 5.000 characters), preferably in German and English.

What kind of documents can be published on FID4SA-Repository?

FID4SA-Repository publishes the following document types:

  • Master's theses, theses, dissertations and theses for qualification as university teacher
  • Grey literature (e.g. manuals, reports, research reports, teaching material)
  • Articles, books, festschrifts, book chapters, complete journal issues, preprints, postprints

If your institution compiles or makes available documents for download on its own internet pages, FID4SA-Repository provides a repository platform for permanent, secure and citable long-term archiving. Departments or faculties, which publish their own monographic series can store those on FID4SA-Repository, too. Individual listings showing the documents of their own institution can be generated for prospective customers.

Can I republish my FID4SA-Repository documents?

In compliance with the copyright law authors retain all rights of use of their documents. Authors who publish a document on FID4SA-Repository transfer to the University Library of Heidelberg a single, non-exclusive right of use. This permits the author to publish the document later, e.g. as an article in a journal or monograph.

The file format we prefer is PDF (Portable Document Format) . However, documents can also be submitted as a PostScript or HTML version.

Is there a way of changing or deleting FID4SA-Repository documents? How long will documents be available online?

The possibility to delete documents is not given. If the author wishes to make a correction, he must re-submit the modified document. This corresponds to the process of a new edition in printed publications. Accordingly, the documents should be available online for an unlimited period of time. The documents are currently available for at least 5 years. Archiving beyond this depends on the availability of the format, viewing software, and conversion options.

Is it possible to cite FID4SA-Repository documents?

Similar to print publications online documents can be cited without any problems. The most common and valid argument against quoting electronic sources is the lack of both safety and permanence of accessibility. Therefore works published on FID4SA-Repository are equipped with standardized addresses (URN, DOI) and metadata (QAI-PMH). These URN and DOI ensure the persistent citability of the document. The citation of online publications varies according to the subject area. Here you should observe the rules of your own subject area.

What about illegal copying and usage of FID4SA-Repository documents?

Free access to online documents makes possible download to personal workstations, copying and further use, too. Copyright law is applicable to online publications as well as to printed publications. To use electronic online documents without making reference to them or to use them for commercial purposes without paying royalties is illegal and will be punished.

Authors have the possibility to use Creative Commons Licenses for their work and use them as rules for using documents according to Open Access.

Do databases, search engines and reference systems provide references?

Heidelberg University Library provides reference in:

What about subject indexing of the documents?

All FID4SA-Repository documents are indexed by using the terminologically controlled vocabulary of the Subject Heading Authority File (SWD) and a DDC notation. Subject indexing is carried out by the FID4SA-Repository of the University Library of Heidelberg.  Authors can propose free and controlled subject headings (of the SWD).

Which technology is used for FID4SA-Repository?

FID4SA-Repository is based on the free software EPrints, which was developed at the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science, England. It is one of the most widely employed institutional repository systems for online publications. As EPrints is an open-source repository it is continuously being optimized by its users.

The FID4SA-Repository server is provided and maintained by the University Library of Heidelberg. Daily data backup of the online documents and of the database is carried out in the central backup system of the University of Heidelberg which is organised by the Computer Centre of Heidelberg University.

How is this usage statistics generated?

The counting method follows the internationally recognized COUNTER Code of Practice (Relaese 5). Accordingly hits from search engines and their crawlers, as well as of systems with conventional search engine query behaviour will not be considered.
New statistics are published within the first week of the following month.

Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg Südasien-Institut der Universität Heidelberg - SAI Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft DFG EPrints Logo