The French National Library Acquires Elsevier's...

AMSTERDAM, April 26 /PRNewswire/ --

    - Visitors to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France get Access to Over 
2,000 Journals on Elsevier's Online Platform - ScienceDirect



    Elsevier, a leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical (STM) 
information and the Bibliotheque 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'Evolution Psychiatrique and Psychologie Francaise. 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.



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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