More than half a million reviewers to receive free access to published research

Amsterdam, November 17, 2008 – Elsevier announced today the launch of reference linking, a new service enabling its community of reviewers to have direct access to referenced articles published by Elsevier, directly from the manuscript they are reviewing.

Reference linking means that by clicking on the hyperlinks, listed alongside the referenced articles, reviewers are brought to the abstracts of those articles. Furthermore, depending on the reviewer's personal or their institute's subscription entitlements, reviewers can also link directly, via CrossRef's DOI service, through to the articles referenced in other publishers' journals. This functionality and the facilitating tools are integrated, seamless and accessible through Elsevier's submission and peer review editorial system (EES).

Elsevier's network of 7,000 journal editors and 500,000 reviewers using EES will have access to abstracts in Scopus (www.scopus.com) and full text of referenced articles in ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com). As well as having access, they also benefit from the functionality of these systems, such as searching for related articles, author and citation information. Reference linking will benefit reviewers by reducing the time spent searching for relevant information during the review process, ensuring a more accurate review process.

"Committed to supporting the peer review process, we are the first major publisher to have integrated its systems and provide reviewers free access to full-text articles. This development will not change the submission process, it will just improve it," said Philippe Terheggen, Senior Vice President, Science & Technology Journals, Elsevier. "Authors are not required to do anything additional or use particular systems or applications to ensure that the references in their manuscript are linked, this will happen automatically. To date reference linking has been introduced to almost all of our journals."

"We already embedded Scopus in our submission and peer review editorial system, EES, two years ago," commented Martin Tanke, Managing Director Science & Technology Journals, Elsevier. "Adding to the integration of services and tools with full-text access and bibliographic information is a significant next step in our commitment to support the research community in the fundamentally important task of peer review. We will continue to develop workflow solutions and services that support scientists and their research; and add value to the publishing process."

Covering the world's research literature, Scopus is the largest and easiest to use navigation tool ever built. Scopus is designed and developed with over 300 users and librarians internationally. Its unique database contains abstracts and references from over 14,000 titles from 4,000 different publishers, ensuring broad interdisciplinary coverage. In addition, Scopus not only offers users citation information about the articles covered, but also integrates web & patent searches directly from its clean and simple interface. Direct links to full-text articles, library resources and other applications like reference management software, make Scopus quicker, easier and more comprehensive to use than any other literature research tool. For more information about Scopus please visit www.info.scopus.com.

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 . Elsevier's extensive and unique full- text collection covers authoritative titles from the core scientific literature including high impact factor titles such as Cell, THE LANCET, and Tetrahedron. Over 6 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 170 leading STM publishers through CrossRef. An expanding suite of scientific full-text content in a rich linking environment provides subscribers with increasingly flexible and extensive access to the world's published STM literature. An expanding program of online major reference works and book series in all fields of science seamlessly interlinks with primary research referenced in journal articles.

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).