News Release

The French National Library acquires Elsevier's journal collection

Visitors to the Bibliothèque nationale de France get access to over 2,000 journals on Elsevier’s online platform -- ScienceDirect

Business Announcement

Elsevier

Amsterdam, April 26, 2007 -- Elsevier, a leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical (STM) information and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) have signed an agreement that enables BnF visitors to access Elsevier’s journal portfolio including the respective backfiles, some of which date back as far as 1823. The agreement also comprises content added to the collection until 2012. The BnF has full archiving rights for this content.

In line with its mission to serve the research communities, this new long-term agreement will help the BnF to reinforce its access to scientific information in all disciplines, attract more researchers to its buildings in an aspiring research area in Paris and increase usage of its information resources. The BnF is the only institution in France to acquire Elsevier’s journal portfolio. Agnes Saal, General Director of the BnF, said: "This agreement represents a great opportunity for all the academic users of the library including high-level students. It will also contribute to transforming the library’s district into the new ‘Latin Quarter’ of Paris."

Elsevier’s wide journal portfolio includes over eight million articles. It comprises prestigious English-language titles such as The Lancet and Tetrahedron, as well as several French-language titles including L'Évolution Psychiatrique and Psychologie Française. Through an ongoing investment of capital and resources, the Elsevier journals portfolio also includes a growing list of backfiles going back to volume 1, issue 1. The result is seamless digital access to the scientific record that consortia, universities, research centers and commercial organizations throughout the world can rely on.

"Ensuring that our information is disseminated as widely and efficiently as possible and stored in perpetuity for future generations is of the utmost importance," noted Frank Vrancken Peeters, Managing Director, Academic & Government, Science & Technology, Elsevier. "I’m delighted to hear that the BnF will hold a permanent record of our journal content and that visitors to the BnF buildings can take advantage of our expanding journal collection and latest online technologies."

Regular updates to ScienceDirect ensure that it continues to meet the growing demands of the electronic publishing world. In August last year, ScienceDirect introduced the first stage of an extensive redesign, which included a host of new features that improve users’ productivity. In January this year, the implementation of the quick and easy-to-use FAST Enterprise Search PlatformTM made searching easier and quicker. More features and functionality developments will follow during the remainder of the year.

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About the BnF

The BnF is the custodian of five centuries of heritage documents patiently collected through legal deposit and acquisitions. The library collects, conserves, analyses, classifies and organises these precious resources with the objective of making them available to the public, to researchers and to all who seek knowledge. This is one of the major cultural institutions in France, and the most heavily supported by the ministry of culture. The BnF, which is the hub of a network of more than 100 libraries with which it has agreements, receives more than 1.2 million visitors to its buildings and around 14 million visitors to its website every year.

The libraries main functions – the collection, conservation and communication of documents – are carried out by the 2,800 people who work in the specialised departments and services located throughout the different BnF sites.

For several years, the BnF has been one of the richest French libraries in electronic documentation in all fields of knowledge, with a collection of nearly 20,000 online periodicals of all kinds.

About ScienceDirect

Over a quarter of the world’s full text scientific, technical and medical (STM) articles – managed by renowned editors, written by respected authors and read by researchers from around the globe – are available in one place: ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com). Elsevier’s extensive and unique full-text collection covers authoritative titles from the core scientific literature including high impact factor titles such as THE LANCET, Cell and Tetrahedron. Over seven-and-a-half million articles are available online, including Articles in Press which offer rapid access to recently accepted manuscripts. The critical mass of information available on ScienceDirect is unsurpassed. Coverage includes over 2,000 journals published by Elsevier and dynamic linking to journals from approximately 2,000 STM publishers through CrossRef. An expanding program of online major reference works, handbooks and book series in all fields of science seamlessly interlinks with primary research referenced in journal articles.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, Elsevier’s 7,000 employees in over 70 offices worldwide publish more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, such as ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/), MD Consult (http://www.mdconsult.com/), Scopus (http://www.info.scopus.com/), bibliographic databases, and online reference works.

Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com/) is a global business headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc (http://www.reedelsevier.com/), a world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).


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