JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE AGAINST EPILEPSY

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

EDITORIAL BOARD

PRESIDENT
Giuliano Avanzini
Milan, Italy

Circulation & Readership

Many libraries are planning to shift their journal collections from print to online in order to serve a wider audience and to get as much high-quality content for their money as possible. Some libraries want to channel their funding away from the purchase of individual titles and into “whole collections” that offer a critical mass of journals available through major publishers.

Expanded Access for Libraries in the Developing World and China

Blackwell is involved in a number of major funding
initiatives in Developing World markets, which are extending the global circulation of the journal. We also continue to establish new initiatives in China to increase the current growth in subscription sales, online usage and to reduce the incidence of piracy that is prevalent in the region.

Circulation

We are delighted to report that the number of libraries with access to Epilepsia has increased significantly during 2003. Worldwide consortia site access increased 28% in 2003. Institutional subscriptions are renewed at 98% when compared with figures as of December 2002 (compared with an industry average of 5-10% decline).

Readership Growth

There is growing evidence that online usage is becoming a factor that libraries take into consideration when reviewing their journals collections. In view of this we are very pleased to see this substantial increase in the online usage of Epilepsia. Online readership figures for Epilepsia increased by over 70% compared to 2002 figures; 158,923 articles have been looked at on-screen and/or printed off during 2003. This is a function of Epilepsia becoming available online in an increasing number of sites, technological improvements resulting in better searching and linking facilities and marketing campaigns which have focused on raising readership.

Blackwell Synergy

We have continued to develop the functionality of Blackwell Synergy over the past year in order to increase the usability of Epilepsia online. We have improved the way researchers can find and link into the journal and its content, and added value to the online articles, such as through reference linking and full-text searching. A major goal of 2003 has been to improve the linking into, between, and out of the online journals on Blackwell Synergy. Ensuring that we become compliant with a range of industry standards, including Open URL linking, OAI, Marc records, and COUNTER usage statistics, has facilitated this. They ensure that librarians are better able to link directly to Epilepsia from their library websites and that students and researchers within major institutions can find content relevant to them.

Another major improvement for 2003 has been allowing the Google search engine to search through the full-text of articles on Blackwell Synergy, bringing a large number of journal readers and new users to the site. The large increase in online usage seen in June can be partly attributed to this technological improvement. Epilepsia benefited from this enhancement immensely with 19,932 click-throughs from Google.

The reference linking within online articles has also seen a marked improvement with the addition of forward linking to articles that cite this article, related articles linking, and links to several new databases where cited. As well as a growing number of links with PubMed (MEDLINE), ISI Web of Science, ADS and other publisher sites through CrossRef, we have also now forged linking relationships with JSTOR, CINAHL, CSA and CIS.

New Features of Epilepsia on Blackwell Synergy for 2004

Reference linking partnerships with:

• JSTOR, so that references link to older cited content in this archive database.
• Current Index of Statistics.
• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, which includes databases covering materials science, environmental sciences and pollution management, biological sciences, aquatic sciences and fisheries, biotechnology, engineering, computer science, sociology, art history, and linguistics.
• Related articles linking enables readers to automatically link to other articles that cover a similar topic.

Reference Manager helps readers to download article citations directly into their own reference management software.

Research alerts enabling registered users to stay up to date with articles that match their research area.

Google optimization so that researchers using this search engine can more easily find content in the Blackwell online journals.

Info area of Blackwell Synergy, which includes tips for researchers to make better use of the
online journals.

Compliance with industry standards:

• COUNTER-compliant usage statistics
• Marc21 records for importing into library online catalogues
• Open URL linking standards
• OAI metadata.

Ongoing Features

Articles available in two formats: PDF for printing; and full-text HTML for reading on- screen and reference linking to related articles.

Reference links are updated regularly and include:

• Forward links to other articles that cite this article, taking readers forward in time through the literature.
• CrossRef links to cited articles in other journals, and back again.
• Reference, keyword and author links directly to PubMed (MEDLINE) and ISI Web of Science.
• Easy links to cited articles in other issues of Epilepsia.
• Screens can be customized with the society logo, conference details, or other information relevant to Epilepsia.
• Table of contents email alerts keep readers up to date with the latest content and allows them to click straight through to the abstracts.
• Full-text searching within the online journals on Blackwell Synergy so that readers can find articles matching keywords or authors.

Supplements
Overview per Issue

New Issues

• Introductory subscriptions: We will offer six-month free online subscriptions to meeting attendees of the August 2005 ILAE Paris conference. If successful, we will expand the practice.
• Chapter bulk discount rates: We are moving ahead with the plans for bulk discount rates for print or electronic versions of Epilepsia.
• Special relationship with the Italian League is being discussed, including a bulk discount for all the members and publishing of the abstracts of the annual Italian congress.
• Back issues online. We are working hard to put the back issues online as far as is possible. The limiting factor is finding complete sets of issues that can be purchased, since pages are cut from binders to scan in most processes.