In recent years, the ISJ, like most other journals, has embraced on-line publishing. The ISJ was originally a traditional print journal sold to libraries, institutions and individuals in hard-copy form. Indeed, it still is and has achieved an impressive number of such subscriptions. In fact print subscriptions are still increasing year on year, despite the wealth of ways in which the ISJ is available on-line (see below) and the fact that most journals are finding that their hard-copy subscriptions are in decline. In general, access and usage statistics for the ISJ are not available from the on-line services and providers, except for Synergy, but it is clear that electronic access to the ISJ is increasing rapidly and becoming a significant part of its future. We are grateful to Blackwell’s for leading the way in this respect and providing such good on-line access. The ISJ is available on-line:

via Synergy

Synergy is Blackwell Publishing’s own on-line web-based journal system, launched in 1999 and re-vamped in 2006. Click here to access Synergy . It provides access to around 850 journals, including the ISJ, with a total of nearly one million articles. Synergy is a subscription service and ISJ individual print subscribers get synergy access free and library print subscribers pay an extra 10%. Synergy access only (without print) costs around 90% of the subscription. Synergy is an excellent service and according to Johann van Reenen, Director of Engineering Library, University of New Mexico “Synergy is the best online journal service I have seen – Superb”. But don’t take his word – see for yourself! Non-subscribers can access Synergy as a ‘Guest User’ and get some useful services such as the ability to browse lists of issues, tables of contents and abstracts, as well as use the Search facility. Synergy also provides non-subscribers with full access to a sample issue of the ISJ and allows you to purchase individual articles for around £10.00. You can also register for free to become a personal user and set up your own customisable area within Synergy called ‘My Synergy‘ where you can sign up for emails of the ISJtable of contents, alerts, etc.

Synergy has in total over 500,000 registered personal users (July 2002). Blackwell’s has a wealth of statistics concerning usage of Synergy, as it is their own system. For example, in March 2003 there were 1.5million user sessions, 1.5m article downloads, 800k searches on the site, 7k new registered users, and 1500 single articles sold. Synergy is of course only one, relatively minor, way that people get access to the ISJ electronically (see below) but in 2006 over 70,000 articles were downloaded electronically.

Synergy, is now COUNTER compliant.  Blackwell Synergy has become one of the first websites to meet these standards and be approved by Project COUNTER. The COUNTER Code of Practice sets out the correct method for measuring and reporting usage statistics across the online information industry.  By becoming COUNTER Compliant, librarians and users can be assured that the usage reports for the 665 science, medicine and social science journals on Blackwell Synergy (www.blackwell-synergy.com) measure the data elements set by the industry and are completely transparent.

Click here to access Synergy.

via Blackwell’s Consortia

These are essentially sales of a package of Blackwell’s journals, including the ISJ, in electronic form, to various consortia of libraries. In total, 1,330 libraries worldwide are members of consortia with over 4 million potential readers. For example, in the UK, 75 universities have access to consortia package, in Denmark 30, and in the US over 100. Consortia sales have substantially exceeded Blackwell’s expectations, in fact, in 2002 they were 95% over budget. For 2003, new consortia sales include Brazil with 97 members and Greece with 52 sites. So, many universities and other institutions worldwide have ready full-text electronic access to ISJ for their students and staff.