The UK Joint Information Systems Committee (www.jisc.ac.uk) and Elsevier, part of the Reed Elsevier Group (www.elsevier.com), announced the conclusion of a new agreement as part of NESLi2, the national electronic journals initiative for the higher education and research communities in the United Kingdom.

The new two-year agreement, which started in January 2004, provides the framework under which the UK's universities and research communities will have electronic access to Elsevier's scientific, technical and medical journals through the ScienceDirect platform (www.sciencedirect.com). These include many of the most highly ranked and important journals in their respective fields.  The new agreement has been expanded to cover access to the Academic Press and Harcourt Health Sciences journals acquired by Elsevier in 2001.