The world is indeed full of publishing and reading fees: Cost management at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Especially in the context of the open access transformation and the associated shift from subscription costs to publication costs, transparent monitoring of available funds and expenses regarding information provision and publishing activities are paramount for scientific institutions. It is an important instrument to track and regulate cost developments. In Germany there have been several recommendations for implementing such a cost management. It is also a requirement to get funding for a publication fonds by the German Research Foundation.As one of the largest university hospitals in Europe, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin publishes over 6000 journal articles per year. Charité has joined the DEAL agreements with Springer Nature, Elsevier and Wiley and is now part of additional transformation contracts with other publishers. With its publication fund (composed of DFG-third party funding and internal budget resources), Charité Medical Library subsidizes more than 1000 publications each year.Given its complexity, establishing the “information budget” is challenging for research institutions of all sizes. But with the high number of publications at Charité, the development of a seamless workflow to document all necessary information is especially important. The poster provides an overview of Charité’s cost management, the workflows, the cooperation between the open access and acquisition team, as well as cooperation with further Charité departments (such as finance and controlling). Furthermore, the poster outlines recorded metadata, the tools and resources used, as well as the first strategies to successfully monitor cost information with the use of scripts.