Emerald news

Emerald Announces Digitization of Complete Archive

British Library assists in project digitizing articles dating back to 1800s

UNITED KINGDOM, October 4, 2007 – Emerald Group Publishing Limited is pleased to announce a project underway to digitize the full archive of its journal titles in the areas of business, management, library and information services, materials science, and engineering. Working with the British Library, more than 50,000 articles from over 120 journals are to be processed into PDF format and made available electronically for the first time. Called Emerald Backfiles, the electronic archive is due for release in early 2008.

Emerald Group Publishing has initiated the digitization project to capture the earlier published articles as part of its 40th anniversary commemoration activities. The British Library, with its vast journal collections, will be responsible for the digitization programme as well as helping Emerald locate elusive paper copies that are not held at the BL.

Mat Pfleger, The British Library’s Head of Sales and Marketing – Priced Services, comments "Many of Emerald’s titles began as far back as the 1800s. Today, it is an expectation that researchers are able to access papers published in 1800s as readily as those published in 2007.  As the national library of the United Kingdom, and with a collection spanning over 250 years, the British Library holds on site over 90 per cent of the project content and has additionally supported Emerald in sourcing those papers not held by the BL. The provision of a single sourcing and digitization programme removes the usual logistical issues associated with such projects and means we are able to provide Emerald with a simple and secure digitization solution".

"When complete, the Emerald Backfiles will provide business and management scholars and social historians electronic access to materials which hitherto now, only existed in print," said Emerald’s Director of Publishing, Rebecca Marsh. "Because the papers are being processed into PDF format, the contents of each article will be fully searchable, making Emerald Backfiles a robust resource for researchers."

Emerald Backfiles will include articles from such seminal publications such as British Food Journal, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Documentation. Further information can be found at http://ww2.emeraldinsight.com/backfiles
or via email to backfiles@emeraldinsight.com

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About the British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world’s greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library’s collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Further information is available on the Library’s website at www.bl.uk.

Contact: Ben Sanderson at the British Library Press Office (telephone 01937 546126, email: ben.sanderson@bl.uk) or Lawrence Christensen (telephone 020 7412 7114, email: lawrence.christensen@bl.uk)

About Emerald

www.emeraldinsight.com

Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,000 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.

Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.

Contact

Arnaud Pellé
Corporate Communications Manager
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Phone: +44 (0) 1274 777700
Email: apelle@emeraldinsight.com