Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues. I have the pleasure again today of welcoming you here. The Academic Publishing in Europe Conferences of the last two years have shown just how fascinating and necessary interchange can be between European professionals from libraries, publishing companies, academic institutions and international organisations – irrespective, of course, of the different points of view taken by individual conference delegates when it comes to the issue of digital publishing. As you surely know, since January 1st this year, a new law has been in place in Germany for the regulation of copyright in the information society. As a publisher of academic specialist literature and chairman of the publishers’ committee within the Borsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, the Association of Booksellers and Publishers in Germany, I have, of course, been closely following the details of discussions surrounding the implementation of the law. For us as publishers the law has brought certain changes because of which, in part together with the libraries, we have been involved in considerable political struggle. One positive aspect or practical relevance for publishing companies is for example the new ruling on the possibility for acquisition of rights for unknown types of use. For the future this gives us some safeguards for our planning. We publishers continue, of course, to monitor the ways in which user behaviours changed by the internet and the measures we need to take so that we are ready for the digital future. It is no longer a matter of being involved in electronic publishing but of how products are to be offered and of their quality. And that is why the motto of this conference “Quality and Publishing” is so appropriate in the current debate. In his talk, Ronald Schild will introduce the Libreka platform which enables German publishing companies to make their text available for searches worldwide on the internet. That is a contribution of our association to quality. Last year we dealt above all with the general conditions for electronic publishing in all the organisational and legal detail. We have also negotiated on this with the libraries – with good results. I am particularly pleased that a solution has been found in the dispute with the organization Subito – Dokumente aus Bibliotheken in Germany – over document distribution and delivery. At the end of last year the Borsenverein, the International Scientific Publishers Association STM and Subito reached an agreement on an outline arrangement for the licensing of electronic document distribution within Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On the basis of this outline agreement separate right agreements are to be concluded in the coming weeks and months between Subito and the individual scientific publishing companies. This is, above all, important for the distribution of documents in Europe and in the international arena. Issues raised in cooperation discussions with the German National Library – Deutsche Nationalbibliothek – included the practical implementation of