Royal Society Journals Launched on Highwire

["Khan, Shania" <shania.khan@royalsociety.org>]

***Apologies for cross posting***

London, February 18, 2009: The Royal Society of London is pleased 
to announce the launch of its new online journal delivery 
platform hosted by HighWire Press and a new domain 
http://royalsocietypublishing.org, replacing the site on 
MetaPress. The platform delivers the Royal Society's 
internationally-renowned science journals, including the longest 
scientific journal archive, back to 1665. It provides 
dramatically enhanced Web 2.0 functionality and library-friendly 
features.

Title-level redirects are now in place until the end of April on 
the old MetaPress site to take your users automatically to the 
relevant journal homepage on HighWire where all our journal 
content, 1665 to the present day, is now loaded.

To give libraries enough time to check their e-access accounts 
and make necessary changes all content is open to all visitors 
until March 31. No one will be denied access before then. After 
that date only subscribers will be able to access current content 
for Royal Society journals.

We are writing to all subscribers with guidance on how to manage 
your account or to view and change your access account details. 
Existing access account details, including IP addresses, were 
transferred from MetaPress and set-up on HighWire's familiar and 
trusted subscription management and reporting system.

If you have any questions about our move to HighWire or your online access 
with us, or you have some feedback about the new site, please contact Jill 
Ponsford in Royal Society Customer Services at access@royalsociety.org

MetaPress Usage Statistics for the period up to the re-direction 
of users on February 18 are available to download from 
http://www.metapress.com until April 30, 2009.  You will need 
your Administrative Login to access institutional usage 
statistics. After that date you will be unable to run these 
reports yourself.

All fulfilment data continues to be maintained at Portland 
Customer Services and HighWire will authenticate everyone against 
Portland's customer records to ensure continuous access to 
subscribed content, now and in the future (also known as 
'perpetual access'). For general subscription and pricing 
enquiries please contact Portland Customer Services at 
sales@portland-services.com

The URLs of the new journal homepages:

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A,
24 issues, ISSN: 1364-503X, E-ISSN:1471-2962
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org


Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B,
24 issues, ISSN: 0962-8436, E-ISSN: 1471-2970
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org

Proceedings of the Royal Society A,
12 issues, ISSN: 1364-5021, E-ISSN: 1471-2946
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org

Proceedings of the Royal Society B,
24 issues, ISSN: 0962-8452; E-ISSN: 1471-2954
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org

Journal of the Royal Society Interface,
12 issues, ISSN: 1742-5689, E-ISSN: 1742-5662
http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org

Biology Letters,
6 issues, ISSN: 1744-9561, E-ISSN: 1744-957X
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org

Notes & Records of the Royal Society,
4 issues, ISSN: 0035-9149, E-ISSN:1743-0178
http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org

Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, annual,
ISSN: 0080-4606, E-ISSN: 1748-8494
http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org

"As the publishing arm of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom 
Academy of Science, we are delighted to launch this impressive 
new publishing platform ahead of the Society's upcoming 350-year 
anniversary in 2010," said Dr Stuart Taylor, Head of Publishing. 
"The Society has been publishing international, peer-reviewed 
journals since 1665, and we see this partnership with HighWire 
Press, using their ground-breaking H2O architecture, as the best 
way to achieve our vision for the future. We are very excited 
that we are now able, with this XML-based environment and Web 2.0 
applications, to offer our readers and authors far greater 
opportunities for discovery and collaboration, keeping the Royal 
Society at the forefront of scholarly communications."

About the Royal Society (http://royalsociety.org)

The Royal Society, the national academy of science of the UK and 
the Commonwealth, is at the cutting edge of scientific progress. 
Founded in 1660, theRoyal Society is dedicated to promoting 
excellence in science. The Society plays an influential role in 
national and international science policy and supports 
developments in science, engineering, and technology in a wide 
range of ways. The Royal Society publishes seven peer-reviewed 
journals and one annual.

About HighWire Press (http://highwire.stanford.edu)

HighWire Press, a division of the Stanford University Libraries, 
provides online site development and hosting solutions to the 
scholarly publishing community. HighWire produces the definitive 
online versions of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and other 
scholarly content in many disciplines. Since 1995, HighWire has 
partnered with influential societies, university presses and 
other publishers to create a vast database of the finest, fully 
searchable research, medical and social science literature 
available on the Internet. The HighWire community shares ideas 
and innovations in publishing through regular meetings, 
discussion forum and through the service of its unique blend of 
highly qualified staff.

HighWire's new electronic publishing platform, H2O, debuted in 
March 2008. The underlying infrastructure is 
web-services-oriented, flexible and permeable, allowing 
publishers to easily layer new software and services to their 
sites that will meet the ever-changing needs of today's online 
readers. As a fully XML-based environment, in addition to just 
handling XML input and output, HighWire's H2O incorporates 
standards like Atom Publishing Protocol ( backed by Google & 
Microsoft), and powerful tools such as the MarkLogic Server.

Shania Khan,
Royal Society Publishing,
6-9 Carlton House Terrace,
London SW1Y 5AG
United Kingdom