Introduction
Scientific publishing has changed considerably over the last few years and many developments are ongoing affecting distribution of refereed economics research papers. In this survey we inform readers and authors of the European Economic Review about recent changes affecting distribution, visibility and archiving of published papers within the EER and the complete set of 79 Elsevier journals in economics as accessible through www.elsevier.com/economics

Objectives
It is Elsevier's prime objective to provide desktop access to the electronic version of its journals for all economists (faculty and students alike) affiliated with universities where the library subscribes to the journal(s) concerned or has obtained a license for electronic access. Elsevier is committed to taking advantage of the many possibilities of web-technology to provide an "added value" product rather than delivering an electronic mirror of the printed journal. Elsevier feels obliged to maximize visibility and retrievability of the papers published in its journals.

ScienceDirect - www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect is the collective database archive of over 1500 Elsevier / North-Holland / Academic / Pergamon / JAI journals in all fields of science. As per October 2002, ScienceDirect contained over 3 million full-text articles published from 1995 to date. This makes it the largest full-text database worldwide. ScienceDirect is a database designed to meet the needs of libraries subscribing to hundreds of journals. In economics and finance, the database contains 64,000 full-text articles published in the Elsevier journals. Additionally, in related areas such as business, management science and statistics, ScienceDirect contains another 150,000 full-text articles.

The most common formats and information products of ScienceDirect are outlined below:

Web-Editions
Basic electronic access to the Elsevier journals is offered through the ScienceDirect web-editions at no additional cost to the print subscription. This includes access to a rolling 12 months of full-text articles from the subscribed journals in both PDF and HTML formats. The license is based upon IP recognition and enables desktop access for each faculty member and student at the subscribing institutes to all articles published during the recent 12 months.
For readers: this means that a significant timesaving as all Elsevier journals are available through one platform and one does not really need to take out personal subscriptions. For authors: the IP recognition enables a wider distribution of your papers among all colleagues in all departments of the licensing institutes.

ScienceDirect Fully-Functional
For this version of ScienceDirect, tailor-made agreements are made with libraries according to their specific needs. This is usually done on the basis of existing print subscription holdings of the university concerned and a fee is added on the basis of additional services (contents and functionality's) required. This usually entails the following:
  • 4 - 7 years back-file material and the current year building up and adding to this recent archive.
  • Archive of full-text accumulates and entitlements remain available for the years subscribed.
  • For quick scanning there is a “summary-plus" of each article: abstract, outline, graphics and linked references.
  • Each article is published in PDF and HTML-format, enabling searching through the references and linking to full-text of cited articles in ScienceDirect and those of participating publishers within CrossRef®.
  • Each article is linked to the abstract as available in ECONLit® and other databases.
  • Each article in every Elsevier journal is provided with a citation history (cited by) building up over time. So it is possible to see how an article was cited within the ScienceDirect journals.
  • ScienceDirect subscribers can search the complete database of over 3 million articles and retrieve corresponding abstracts; there is a pay-per view option for journals not covered by the institute's license.
  • There are many search options and personalization features available for individual readers.

Subject Collections
As a result of tailor-made arrangements between libraries and Elsevier, there is a possibility to obtain electronic access at large discounts to non-subscribed titles within the economics subject collection. Electronic access will be provided for the current year plus 4 back years with all ScienceDirect functionalities. A hypothetical ScienceDirect customer subscribing to 40 economics titles could gain electronic access to the remaining 37 economics journals as listed on www.elsevier.com/economics at a discount as much as 85%. This option is expected to increase the penetration of the European Economic Review among smaller universities.

Backfiles - Journal Archive
The complete journal archive of all Elsevier economics journals is available. This includes the EER going back to volume 1.1 published in 1969. The complete package comprises 34,000 full-text articles published prior to 1995 in 67 economics journals.
ScienceDirect offers one single interface to search and access 34,000 economics articles prior to 1995 together with 30,000 articles published from 1995 to 2002 and growing daily. For all details and functionality's please read the FAQ's: Journals Archive & Backfiles at www.elsevier.com/economics