'Embryonic' Encyclopedia of Life Sciences - A pioneering concept for a ground-breaking project

'Embryonic' Encyclopedia of Life Sciences will be an example of the potential offered by our dynamic new electronic publishing environment. Planned, written and edited by 5,000 of the world's leading scientists and scientific historians, it will be a work of unprecedented scope and quality. A publication of this kind takes time to build; ELS is scheduled for publication in 2001. Meanwhile, Macmillan has decided to embrace the exciting opportunities offered by new technology; the developing ELS database will be made available on the web as Embryonic ELS . This will give institutional librarians and their academics the chance to access this remarkable reference work as it evolves over a 12 month period.

Embryonic ELS will not be a prototype or early version of the final publication but will provide a "window" through which to view and browse the ELS article database prior to publication. It will be a fully searchable working editorial site rather than an end product. When first released Embryonic ELS will comprise over 700 articles across the fields of biochemistry, cell biology, development biology, ecology, evolution, genetics, immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, neuroscience, plant science, physiology, structural biology, virology and the history of the life sciences.

Users will have the unique opportunity to watch the publication grow as articles are submitted, and will eventually have at their fingertips access to the best single integrated source of biological knowledge in the world. Just as importantly they will have the opportunity to provide feedback and to help in the development of this unique resource.

Embryonic ELS will offer good but basic functionality. Users will be able to search the complete hierarchy of article titles and retrieve full text articles where these have been delivered and processed. When published in 2001 the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences will provide sophisticated search and retrieval facilities, extensive internal linking and indexes, links to primary literature, biological data and other useful information sources and a regular updating service.

Macmillan Reference has a long and established tradition in science publishing, dating back as far as 1869 with the founding of Nature, the international weekly journal of science. Now Embryonic ELS follows in this great tradition taking a pioneering step in this new and exciting project for which there is no precedent.

For more information please contact:

Natasha Robshaw
Science Marketing Assistant
Macmillan Reference Ltd
25 Eccleston Place
London
SW1W 9NF

Tel: 0171 881 8026
Fax: 0171 881 8022
Email:n.robshaw@macmillan.co.uk
http://www.macmillan-reference.co.uk/

Message posted by: Frank S. Zollmann