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Advancing science and healthcare: a shared goal

We all have an important role to play in the STM community: scientists, researchers, authors, editors, doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners, librarians and publishers.

While relationships and traditions evolve, our shared goal remains constant. As one community, we serve society through the advancement of scientific and medical research and practice.

Publishers play an important role. We ensure the integrity of content and nurture new paths of exploration, extend access to vital information and preserve knowledge for generations to come. For Elsevier, linking researchers and practitioners with the sophisticated resources and information they need is both our core business mission and a profound responsibility.

Scientists advancing science

Scientific and healthcare research is growing rapidly, with ever-increasing amounts of information being published each year. Today, millions of researchers around the globe rely on approximately 18,000 peer-reviewed journals containing 1.4 million articles.

Scientists rely on these reputable journals to aggregate, filter and validate author submissions independent of any outside influence or interested third party. At Elsevier, independent editors and editorial boards decide whether or not to publish an author's work based upon its quality, novelty and relevance for the publication. And, as scientific research steadily grows, new fields of inquiry and exploration develop.

The creation of new STM journals helps to nurture these emerging fields by providing scientists and researchers with a forum to establish the field's identity, focus and validity. Elsevier has supported this need by launching new journals every year for more than five decades. Many have helped to define new disciplines and sub-disciplines.

Sharing the world's STM information

Today there is greater access to and more efficient usage of scientific information by more scientists than ever before. STM publishers have collaborated on industry standards and invested substantially in new technologies to allow scientists and practitioners the ease and ability to access, cross-reference, organise and share the world's STM information, anytime, anywhere. Elsevier has invested hundreds of millions to digitise the content of all its journals, develop new products and enhance functionality and access.

As a result, more than 10 million scientists worldwide now access, via ScienceDirect, millions of Elsevier articles and abstracts as well as the content of other STM publishers through the free linking system CrossRef. Scientists are not only accessing a wealth of information, but they are searching and locating the content they need faster and easier with the new navigation tool Scopus, which they helped to develop with Elsevier. Past, present and future scholars are now seamlessly connected to vital information.

STM publishers have also collaborated on initiatives to bridge the information divide around the globe. Two UN projects are making sustainable progress toward that goal. For example, WHO-led HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative) provides public institutions in developing countries with online access to the major journals of the biomedical and related social sciences. Inspired by this success, the Food and Agricultural Organization's AGORA project (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) is linking researchers, policy makers, educators, technical workers and extension specialists in developing countries with high quality, relevant information in agriculture and related fields. Elsevier is proud to be a founding publisher of both initiatives.

Documenting the 'minutes of science' for past, present and future

Elsevier is committed to ensuring that scientists and researchers have enduring access to the scientific scholarship we publish. Our journal programmes record the 'minutes of science', and we recognise our responsibilities as the keeper of those 'minutes' in our policies regarding copyright, archiving and the historic record of the transactions of scholarship.

In 2002, Elsevier and the National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) reached a groundbreaking agreement in electronic archiving. The Library is now the first official digital archive of all Elsevier journals, ensuring permanent access to critical scientific and medical research.

One community, one calling

For more than a century, Elsevier has been dedicated to fuelling a continuous cycle of exploration and discovery and to accelerating the transformation of ideas into actions. The STM community is a network that fosters the creation of knowledge, links cultures and peoples, and brings understanding and hope. At Elsevier we believe that getting the right information into the right hands, at the right time, can make a difference.

A Book in Your Name - helping to fill the shelves of university libraries across the developing world

In 2005, Elsevier marks the 425th anniversary of the establishment of the House of Elzevir, university printer/ publisher of seminal works including those by Descartes and Galileo; and the 125th birthday of the modern company Elsevier, named to honour the tradition of excellence of the House of Elzevir.

To commemorate our double birthday, Elsevier launched a book donation programme to help fill the shelves of university libraries across the developing world. Designed by employees for employees, 'A Book in Your Name' invited all Elsevier colleagues to select one of 10 libraries to receive a book donated by Elsevier. An external Advisory Panel of librarians collaborated with Elsevier to choose needy libraries in Africa, Latin America and Asia that would make excellent use of the donated books.

As a result, each library will receive a core collection of 670 books representing essential STM titles from Elsevier's catalogue. They include such influential and widely used works as Gray's Anatomy, Fundamentals of Neuroscience and Cecil Essentials of Medicine. A total donation of 6,700 books is being shipped, valued at approximately US$1 million.

contact details

Marike Westra
Email: marike.westra@elsevier.com
Web: www.elsevier.com