Amsterdam, November 15, 2006 - Elsevier, the largest global scientific, technical and medical publisher, today counted the one-billionth full-text article download on its electronic journal and book platform, ScienceDirect®. ScienceDirect started counting the use of full-text articles in April 1999, when it was launched.

In its first year, just over 300,000 full text articles were requested from the site by about 60 customer organisations. Now, in 2006 a record usage of more than 300 million articles has been achieved, downloaded by nearly 11 million users in 134 countries. The one billionth article download has also been counted by industry-standard measurements as Elsevier is fully COUNTER compliant, and was one of the first publishers to be a compliant vendor.

"This is a milestone both for us and for our customers. With our many users based throughout academic, government, medical and corporate organisations and the continuing preference shown by people to dedicatedly use online resources, it’s no surprise that we reached this milestone now. I think it clearly shows how we have come to rely heavily on electronic platforms like ScienceDirect as the easiest way to gather information. And I expect that we will continue to see double-digit growth in usage annually in the years to come", commented Joep Verheggen, Director of ScienceDirect and member of the COUNTER Board of Directors. "In addition, librarians and information specialists in all of our customer institutions will have noticed that while full-text usage is growing strongly, the relative cost per full-text article is still falling".

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About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, Elsevier’s 7,000 employees in over 70 offices worldwide publish more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, such as ScienceDirect, MD Consult, Scopus, bibliographic databases, and online reference works.

Elsevier is a global business headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

About ScienceDirect
Over a quarter of the world’s full text scientific, technical and medical (STM) articles – managed by renowned editors, written by respected authors and read by researchers from around the globe – are available in one place: ScienceDirect.

Elsevier’s extensive and unique full-text collection covers authoritative titles from the core scientific literature including high impact factor titles such as THE LANCET, Cell and Tetrahedron. Over 7.8 million articles are available online, including Articles in Press which offer rapid access to recently accepted manuscripts.

The critical mass of information available on ScienceDirect is unsurpassed.  Coverage includes over 1,800 journals published by Elsevier and dynamic linking to journals from approximately 350 STM publishers through CrossRef.  An expanding program of online major reference works and book series in all fields of science seamlessly interlinks with primary research referenced in journal articles.

About COUNTER
Launched in March 2002, COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is an international collaborative initiative designed to serve librarians, publishers and intermediaries by standardising the recording and exchange of online usage statistics.

COUNTER had its genesis in the UK, with the PALS (Publisher and Librarian Solutions) group formed by JISC, ALPSP and The Publishers Association.

Media Contact
Brant Emery
ScienceDirect
Tel: +31 (0)20 485 3066
Email: brant.emery@elsevier.com