ABCD springer.com Society Zone Newsletter Spring 2007 IN THIS ISSUE Dear Society Partner, Welcome to the second issue of the Society Zone Newsletter. We hope this newsletter will continue to keep you informed of current activities and initiatives at Springer. This year promises to be a very exciting one as we introduce several new and exciting products and services to our Society publishing partners. New Features of Society Homepages Please be sure to read about the newly expanded SpringerLink, which incorporates full text searching page 2 across 1,700 scientific journals and 10,000 books. (p. 3). You’ll find an overview of the new features SpringerLink Now Newly Expanded and benefits of our enhanced platform, as well as a practical guide to navigating and utilizing the and Enhanced website with all of its enhanced functionality. In addition to providing journal content in a more page 3 comprehensive and user-friendly way, SpringerLink will bring heightened visibility to your Society. The NEW SpringerLink: A Practical Guide The new SpringerLink demonstrates Springer’s commitment to innovative publishing. Therefore this page 4 issue of Society Zone also features commentary and candid interviews from the key people who are driving forces in our approach to electronic publishing. Innovations in Society Publishing: Thoughts from Jan Velterop, Director of Open Access We hope you enjoy this newsletter and invite you to read more about Society publishing at Springer at page 6 springer.com/societies. Ask Monika – FAQs from the Society With best wishes, Liaison Office page 7 An Exciting New Partnership page 8 Springer in the News page 8 In the Spotlight: Dr. Allyn McConkie- Rosell, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Genetic Counseling page 9 New Society Journals for 2007 Paula Gantz Harry Verwayen page 10 Director Society Publishing Director Society Publishing Springer Journals in the Media The Americas Europe & Asia page 12 [email protected] [email protected] springer.com 2 Society Zone Newsletter New Features of Society Homepages Springer offers Societies Customized design: A portal page specifically designed for you to picture either the Journal’s excellent online branding title brand, the Society logo, or branded colors. opportunities for their journals Customized offerings: A portal page listing all services, news, events, announcements, feed- These days, when most journal articles are back-forms and links relevant to the audience, retrieved electronically, and fewer and fewer which can be up-dated by the Society 24 hours readers enjoy reading the printed issue, the a day using Springer’s easy to use Content Journal cover as the sole visual carrier of the Management System. Journal’s brand has lost importance. The way in Informal discussions with the community: which journals are found and visualized online A journal blog allowing the Editor-in-Chief Juliane Ritt, Director Global often has a higher impact on the visual recogni- and editorial boards to quickly interact with Marketing Management tion of a journal within its community. The web readers on topical issues. also offers many more social networking opportu- Cover design: Last but not least, professional nities, many of which Springer makes available to designers can consult with the Society on the its Society partners. design of the Journal cover to achieve best possible online recognition. Customized Classic Homepages Additional exposure: These customized features meet the individual needs of and additional portal pages all serve one goal: each journal increased traffic and higher visibility for each Society Journal by featuring services that are “The impact of a journal’s A positive online branding experience starts uniquely offered by Societies to their community. brand name depends, with excellent usability of the site. Therefore, all of course, mainly on the journals benefit from the features of our Classic Homepages including quick authentication, Cooperation with Current quality and scientific easy browsing and targeted searching, as well relevance of its articles, as fast retrieval of content. Up-to-date informa- Medicine Group offers complete however it would be a lost tion such as the most viewed articles, online-first Society website solutions opportunity for any Society articles, Open Choice options, editorial-boards, or manuscript submission information are also If a Society needs a complete website solution, not to take advantage of among the basic elements that are available at Springer offers the expertise of Current Medicine optimal online branding every homepage. Banner space can also be used to Group (CMG). CMG is part of Springer Science and visualization leading generate online revenue, or it can simply be used and Business Media and a leading provider of to feature special services of the Society. websites. CMG offers complete website solutions to even greater awareness including editorial support, educational content, among their readers”, says Because Society needs differ significantly, we image collections, enhanced PubMed Interface, Juliane Ritt, Director Global offer our partners a variety of additional options, etc. Marketing Management. which can easily be implemented in our enhanced journal portal pages: If you want to know whether Springer can fulfill Seamless access: Access to the Journal’s content your individual needs, please contact your via the Society website without additional regis- publishing editor directly. tration. Direct link: A journal specific url/domain leading users directly to the Journal’s homepage. Visit the following Society Portals on springer.com! Society for In Vitro Biology: springer.com/sivb International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering: springer.com/ifmbe springer.com/societies 3 Spring 2007 SpringerLink Now Newly Expanded and Enhanced Combining improved search functionalities compliant usage statistics, and manage with the total integration of all its online custom linkout functionality. products and enhanced by a new look A secure content management tool for and feel, Springer recently relaunched thousands of publications. SpringerLink – the world’s most compre- hensive collection of scientific, technical But the redevelopment involved a consider- and medical reference works. Now, more able amount of work on Gertraud’s part too, powerful than ever, this premier online including content preparation, developing service spans the universe of research by the sales model, and hosting. Together with offering more than 1,700 peer reviewed a team from electronic production, editorial, Gertraud Griepke, Springer’s head journals and 10,000 eBooks online, with marketing, sales, and distribution, she coor- of Business and Customer Support 3,000 eBooks, eReference works and dinated the process and helped find solutions eBook series titles added each year. based on Springer’s requirements. MetaPress Provides Solutions “The process began by developing a proto- Exposure to Society partner information type for eBooks, then for reference books, all SpringerAlerts to keep users current with Springer’s first version of the SpringerLink resulting in an integrated platform for all custom email bulletins platform offered customers the most up- types of content,” she says. “There were many Access via IP address, Athens or to-date technology available at the time. colleagues and departments involved. In fact, User Name/Password However, Springer continued to develop the whole company. Special departments were Direct Access to the SpringerLink these products and services to keep pace created which contributed enormously to the Admin Site for easy user admin and usage with customer needs. To perform this neces- success of the project. It was a total makeover,” statistics sary work, Springer searched for a develop- she added. Worldwide Help Desk ment partner and found MetaPress. The company offered a service that allowed the Customer Input Important “SpringerLink is an integrated platform for integration of book, journal, and reference books, journals, and reference works with work content in one online platform. Access Reworking SpringerLink and preparing it for a more sophisticated search engine. The for users in China through a platform hosted relaunch took over a year, though some basic new platform fundamentally advances the in the country was one of the major require- analyses were readied in advance, including science of information access by exploiting ments with which MetaPress could comply. market research and a complete competitive the information kept in the metadata of each assessment. User surveys were conducted article,” said Gertraud Griepke. “Libraries, As Springer’s online host for electronic infor- with current SpringerLink customers researchers, authors, in fact all users will mation, MetaPress loads content, provides resulting in the recommendation for an elec- appreciate being able to locate more content a sophisticated search engine, grants user tronic platform. Dr. Olaf Ernst, Springer’s than they found before,” she concluded. access, and produces usage statistics. Vice President of E-Product Management, subsequently interviewed and solicited Gertraud foresees even more developments “Sharing an electronic distribution platform opinions of more than 100 customers and coming for SpringerLink in the near future, (host) among different publishers is beneficial business partners. Also during this phase, he such as web searching and intertwined to both user and publisher,” said Gertraud introduced