APS Online Journals Available Free in U.S. High Schools

["APS ASSOCPUB" <assocpub@aps.org>]

American Physical Society Online Journals Available Free in U.S. 
High Schools

Ridge, NY, 9 February 2011 - The American Physical Society (APS) 
announces a new public access initiative that will give high 
school students and teachers in the United States full use of all 
online APS journals, from the most recent articles back to the 
first issue in 1893, a collection including over 400,000 
scientific research papers.  APS will provide access to its 
journals, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review, and Reviews 
of Modern Physics, at no cost, as a contribution to public 
engagement with the ongoing development of scientific 
understanding.  The high school program is a natural follow on to 
last summer's offering to U.S. public libraries. "When we made 
our journals freely available to public libraries, we were 
happily surprised to receive requests for access from high 
schools as well," said APS Publisher Joseph Serene. "We are now 
delighted to share our journals and their archive with interested 
secondary school students and teachers."

"We want to foster the interest of high school students in the 
primary scientific literature. Some of it will be beyond their 
reach, but there are also papers such as the invention of the 
transistor and laser diode that can pique the interest of many 
high school students," said Gene Sprouse, APS Editor in Chief.

High school teachers or librarians can obtain access by accepting 
a simple online site license and providing valid IP addresses of 
public-use computers in their high school or high school library 
https://librarians.aps.org/account/public_access_new. The license 
requires that users be in the high school when they read the APS 
journals online or download articles.  Initially the program is 
limited to the U.S., but it may be extended to high schools in 
other countries in the future.

"We've been excited to obtain access to the online APS journals, 
since we heard about the program for public libraries," said 
Becca Ferrick, head librarian at Thomas Jefferson High School for 
Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA. "Our students and 
faculty look forward to using these valuable resources to support 
our science curriculum and student research."

About APS: The American Physical Society (www.aps.org) is a 
non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse 
the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research 
journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy 
and international activities.  APS represents 48,000 members, 
including physicists in academia, national laboratories and 
industry in the United States and throughout the world.  Society 
offices are located in College Park, MD (Headquarters), Ridge, 
NY, and Washington, DC.