Encyclopaedia Iranica Partners with Brill Academic Publishers

February 20, 2020
Iranica bookshelf

The Ehsan Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies at Columbia University is pleased to announce the conclusion of an agreement with Brill Academic Publishers (Koninklijke Brill NV) for publication of the online edition of the Encyclopaedia Iranica.

Following the closure of Eisenbrauns Press, the former distributor, Brill agreed to take over publication and distribution of print fascicles of the Encyclopaedia Iranica on behalf of the Yarshater Center and has done so in exemplary fashion. We believe the extension of the agreement with Brill to include online publication is a necessary step that will bring many advantages. We will benefit from Brill’s unsurpassed experience in the publication of major reference works, including the online versions of the Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft and the three editions, in print and digital, of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill is well placed to promote, publicize, market, and distribute such works globally. Articles published on its online platform receive Digital Object Identifier (DOI) numbers, which facilitate locating and citing them properly for professional researchers. Without the subsidies the Encyclopaedia Iranica has received in the past, costs for accessing the work will necessarily increase, but Brill has generously agreed that those parts of the Encyclopaedia Iranica currently in open-access will remain available online without charge for a period of up to two years.

Most importantly, this agreement will allow the Yarshater Center to resume online publication of the many articles that have been on hold due to a dispute and ongoing litigation regarding the copyright ownership of the Encyclopaedia Iranica. (Please click here for more information on the litigation.) We regret the inconvenience the delay has caused for authors whose articles could not be published promptly, and we look forward to working with Brill to make those articles available as quickly as possible.