Elsevier Science and British Library Press Release

[Andrew.Braid@mail.bl.uk (Andrew Braid)]

     99/07                                                                  
                                      26 January 1999

     THE BRITISH LIBRARY AND ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
     
     The British Library and Elsevier Science BV have reached agreement in 
     the supply and use of material in electronic format.  The agreement 
     will allow the electronic full text produced by Elsevier Science BV in 
     their ScienceDirect Onsite system to be stored by the British Library 
     for use in its public reading rooms and for satisfying both library 
     privilege and copyright-fee paid document delivery requests.  The 
     material will be stored on the ScienceServer system developed by 
     ScienceServer LLC.

     The agreement will allow access to over 800 Elsevier Science titles by 
     readers in the new British Library Science Reading Rooms at St Pancras 
     and to over 18,000 customers of the Library's Document Supply service. 
     Requests for the latter should be processed in a matter of minutes 
     after receipt and with a high level of accuracy.
     
     "This agreement builds on a two year trial with a small number of 
     Elsevier titles in electronic format." said David Russon, Deputy Chief 
     Executive of the British Library.  "That trial was successful and we 
     are looking towards this full scale implementation as a precursor to 
     many similar deals with other publishers."

     Derk Haank, Chairman of Elsevier Science BV, said "with this agreement 
     we underline the partnership with the British Library over a long 
     period.  Together we enter a new period of realising the first steps 
     of a digital library allowing the British Library to increase their 
     level of service to their users.  Elsevier Science is very pleased to 
     be part of this continuing development."

     The agreement, which is for three years, covers all the titles 
     published by Elsevier in its ScienceDirect Onsite system.
          
     
     Further information is available from the British Library Press 
     Office, tel 0171-412 7111, fax  0171 412-7168, e-mail press-and 
     pr@bl.uk

     Notes to Editors

     1 The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom 
     and one of the world's greatest libraries. The British Library offers 
     the widest range of services of any library in the world. Every 
     working day services are offered in sixteen reading rooms and study 
     areas and there are more than half a million reading room visits each 
     year.

     Over 4 million documents are supplied to remote users annually and 
     some 3 million separate items are added to the collection each year. 
     The catalogue records produced by the Library are made available 
     worldwide.
     
     At present the Library has over 2,400 staff and operates from two main 
     sites in London and from Boston Spa in Yorkshire. By mid 1999 most of 
     the Library's London collections and services, with the exception of 
     the Newspaper Library at Colindale, will be based at the Library's new 
     building at St Pancras.
     
     The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 
     million separate items. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, 
     maps, stamps, music, patents, newspaper and sound recordings in all 
     written and spoken languages.
     
     2 Elsevier Science, the world's leading publisher of scientific, 
     technical and medical publications, has offices in Amsterdam, Oxford, 
     New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Lausanne and Shannon.
     
     3 ScienceServer LLC, has its headquarters in Maclean, Virginia and  
     offers innovative, digital library software solutions and related 
     services  to the global science, technology, medical, and legal 
     library markets. ScienceServer provides software for large scale, full 
     text access to electronic journals and in-house publications with 
     integrated links from citation and bibliographic databases.