The view of Elsevier Science on licensing

Abstract

The presentation concentrated on four parts: 1. the position of Elsevier Science in the publishing environment of both print and electronic formats; 2. ScienceDirect as the gateway technology for linking online and onsite services; 3. the implications of negotiating license agreements; 4. the new pricing policy for the year 2000. Elsevier Science is a member of the Reed Elsevier publishing group. The company publishes post-graduate research STM literature that appears in the imprints of Elsevier, Excerpta Medica, North Holland, and Pergamon. Parallel to the print production, the major part of its core journal portfolio is electronically accessible. The input of all digitised data is carried out by the Lexis Nexis database, which operates as the platform for the ScienceDirect services. Today’s objective of Elsevier Science is to build upon the traditional science publishing role with a fully integrated network of comprehensive information services. Elsevier Science has been among the first science publishers who initiated experiments in delivering content in electronic format. The company participated in the Adonis project (since 1980s) and it carried out the successful TULIP program (1991-1995) among nine prominent physics libraries in the USA. Its ongoing activity in the computer aided production of current awareness services (CAPCAS) resulted in the commercial medium of ScienceDirect, which facilitates access to basically all Elsevier Science journals either through an onsite server solution, ScienceDirect OnSite (formerly Elsevier Electronic Subscriptions or EES), or online via the Internet, ScienceDirect OnLine.