Elsevier
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{{otheruses4|the publisher|the [[Dutch language]] [[magazine]]|Elsevier (magazine)}}
{{Infobox_Company
| company_name = Elsevier
| company_logo = [[Image:Elsevier-logo.JPG|Elsevier]]
| company_type = [[Private company]]
| slogan = Building Insights. Breaking Boundaries.
| foundation = [[1880]]
| location = [[Amsterdam]]
| key_people =
| num_employees =
| industry = Publishing
| products =
| revenue =
| net_income =
| homepage = [http://www.elsevier.com www.elsevier.com]
}}
'''Elsevier''', the world's largest [[publisher]] of [[medical]] and [[scientific literature]], forms part of the [[Reed Elsevier]] group. Based in [[Amsterdam]], the company has substantial operations in the [[United Kingdom]], [[USA]] and elsewhere.
==Origins==
Elsevier took its name (in modernised form) from the historic Dutch publishing house of the same name (see [[House of Elzevir]]). The Elzevir family had operated as booksellers and publishers in the [[Netherlands]]. Its founder, [[Lodewijk Elzevir]], (1542–1617) lived in [[Leiden]] and established the business in [[1580]].
==Modern company==
The modern company was founded in 1880. Leading products include journals such as ''[[The Lancet]]'', ''[[Cell (journal)|Cell]]'' and ''[[Tetrahedron Letters]]'', books such as ''[[Gray's Anatomy]]'', and the ''[[ScienceDirect]]'' collection of electronic journals. Others include the ''[[Trends (journals)|Trends]]'' series, and the ''[[Current Opinion]]'' series.
==Elsevier company==
Elsevier may be the world’s largest provider of science and health information. It publishes about 250'000 articles per year in 2000 journals<ref name="ataglance">''[http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/ataglance Elsevier at a glance]''</ref>. Its archives contain 7 million past publications. Total yearly downloads amount to 240 million.<ref>http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/glance_1 (accessed 19 October 2007)</ref>
==Economic indicators==
Elsevier is part of the [[Reed Elsevier]] group. In terms of [[revenue]], it accounts for 28% of the total (₤1.5b of 5.4 billions in 2006). In terms of [[Earnings before interest and taxes|operating profit]]s, it represents a much bigger fraction of 44% (₤395 of 880 millions)<ref>[http://www.investis.com/reports/reed_ar_2006_en/report.php?type=0&page=98 Reed Elsevier | Annual Report and Financial Statements 2006<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>. Adjusted operating profits have risen by 10% between 2005 and 2006.<ref>[http://www.investis.com/reports/reed_ar_2006_en/report.php?type=0&page=17 Reed Elsevier | Annual Report and Financial Statements 2006<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
{| class="wikitable" align=right
|-
! colspan=3 | <font color=darkblue>Reed Elsevier Annual Report 2006</font>
|-
| '''Turnover'''
| € 7'935 million (+5% from '05)
|-
| '''Pre-tax profit'''
| € 1'060 million (+3% from '05)
|-
! colspan=3 | <font color=darkblue>Elsevier Annual Report 2006</font>
|-
| '''Turnover'''
| € 2'236 million (+6.6% from '05)
|-
| '''Pre-tax profit'''
| € 581 million (+0.5% from '05)
|-
| colspan=3 | <small>see Elsevier reports<ref>[http://www.investis.com/reports/reed_ar_2006_en/report.php?type=0&page=98 Reed Elsevier | Annual Report and Financial Statements 2006<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>; [[Revenue|turnover]] = revenue; profits not adjusted</small>
|}
==Company figures==
7,000 journal editors, 70,000 editorial board members and 200,000 reviewers are working for Elsevier.<ref name="ataglance"/> Each year, the company publishes the original work of more than 500,000 authors in 2,000 journals, 17,000 books, 18 new journals and 1,900 new books.<ref name="ataglance"/>
It is headed by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) [[Erik Engstrom]].<ref>[http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/management_profiles Elsevier<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
With its headquarters based in [[Amsterdam]], [[Netherlands]], Elsevier employs more than 7,000 people in over 70 offices across 24 countries.<ref name="ataglance"/>
==Elsevier's operating divisions==
Elsevier has two distinct operating divisions: Science & Technology and Health Sciences. Products and services of both include electronic and print versions of journals, textbooks and reference works and cover the health, life, physical and social sciences.
====Science & Technology====
[[Herman van Campenhout]] is the CEO.
The target markets are academic and government research institutions, corporate research labs, booksellers, librarians, scientific researchers, authors, and editors.
Flagship products and services include: [[ScienceDirect]], [[Scopus]], [[Scirus]], [[EMBASE]], [[Engineering Village]], [[Compendex]], [[Cell (journal)|Cell]].
There are the following subsidiary imprints, many of them previously independent publishing companies: [[Academic Press]], [[Architectural Press]], [[Butterworth-Heinemann]], [[CMP]], [[Digital Press]], Elsevier, [[Focal Press]], [[Gulf Professional Publishing]], [[Morgan Kaufmann]], Newnes, [[Pergamon]], [[Pergamon Flexible Learning]], [[Syngress Publishing]].
===Health Sciences===
The target market is physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, medical and nursing students and schools, medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and research establishments. Publishing in 12 languages including English, German, French Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese and Chinese.
Flagship publications include: The 'Consult' series (FirstCONSULT, PathCONSULT, NursingCONSULT, MDConsult, [[StudentCONSULT]]), Virtual Clinical Excursions, and major reference works such as [[Gray's Anatomy]], [[Nelson' Pediatrics]], [[Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary]], [[Frank H. Netter|Netter]]'s Atlas of Human Anatomy, and online versions of many journals<ref>[http://www.journals.elsevierhealth.com Elsevier<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> including [[The Lancet]], [[FEBS Letters]], etc.
There are the following subsidiary imprints, previously independent publishing companies: [[Saunders]], [[Mosby]], [[Churchill Livingstone]], [[Butterworth-Heinemann]], [[Hanley & Belfus]], Bailliere-Tindall, Urban & Fischer, Masson.
==Criticism==
In recent years the subscription rates charged by the company for its journals have been criticised; some very large journals (those with more than 5000 articles) charge subscription prices as high as $14,000, far above average. The company has been criticised not just by advocates of a switch to the so-called [[open access|open-access]] publication model, but also by universities whose library budgets make it difficult for them to afford current journal prices. For example, a resolution by [[Stanford University]]'s senate singled out Elsevier as an example of a publisher of journals which might be "disproportionately expensive compared to their educational and research value" and which librarians should consider dropping, and encouraged its faculty "not to contribute articles or editorial or review efforts to publishers and journals that engage in exploitive or exorbitant pricing".<ref>''[http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/february25/minutes-225.html Faculty Senate minutes February 19 meeting]'' Stanford Report, Feb. 25, 2004</ref> Similar guidelines and criticism of Elsevier's pricing policies have been passed by the [[University of California]], [[Harvard University]] and [[Duke University]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2004/2/20/facSenAddressesCostlyJournals| title=Fac Sen addresses costly journals | journal=The Stanford Daily| date=2004-02-20}}</ref>
=== Several entire editorial boards left Elsevier in protest ===
In November 1999 the complete Editorial Board of the ''[[Journal of Logic Programming]]'' (50 persons in total) collectively resigned after 16 months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier Press about the price of library subscriptions. This editorial board created a new journal (''[[Theory and Practice of Logic Programming]]'') with a lower priced publisher, and on its side Elsevier continued the publication of the journal with a completely different editorial board and a slightly different name (The ''[[Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming]]'').
In 2002, dissatisfaction at Elsevier's pricing policies caused the [[European Economic Association]] to terminate an agreement with Elsevier which designated Elsevier's [[European Economic Review]] as the official journal of the association. The EEA decided to launch a new journal, the [[Journal of the European Economic Association]].<ref>[http://www.eeassoc.org/index.php?page=14 The EEA's Journal: A Brief History]</ref>
At the end of 2003, the entire editorial board of the prestigious ''[[Journal of Algorithms]]'' resigned to start ''[[Transactions on Algorithms]]'' with a different, lower priced publisher<ref>[http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~hal/s.pdf Changes at the Journal of Algorithms]</ref>, at the suggestion of ''Journal of Algorithms'' founder [[Donald Knuth]]<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/joalet.pdf | author=Donald Knuth| date=2003-10-25 | title=Letter to the editorial board of the Journal of Algorithms| access-date=2008-02-18}}</ref>.
The same happened in 2005 to the ''[[International Journal of Solids and Structures]]'' whose editors resigned to start the ''[[Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures]]''. However, a new editorial board was quickly established and the journal continues in apparently unaltered form with Editors Prof Hills from Oxford and Dr. Stelios Kyriakides from the University of Texas at Austin.
On [[August 10]], [[2006]], the entire editorial board of the distinguished mathematical journal ''[[Topology (journal)|Topology]]'' handed in their resignation, again because of stalled negotiations with Elsevier to lower the subscription price.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/topology-letter.pdf | date=2006-08-10 | title=Resignation letter from the editors of Topology | access-date=2008-02-18}}</ref> This board has now launched the new [[Journal of Topology]] at a far lower price, under the auspices of the [[London Mathematical Society]].<ref>[http://www.lms.ac.uk/publications/jtop.html Journal of Topology] (pub. London Mathematical Society)</ref>
The French [[École Normale Supérieure]] has stopped having Elsevier publish the prestigious journal [[Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure]]<ref>[[John Baez]]: ''[http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/journals.html What We Can Do About Science Journals]'' August 13, 2007</ref> (as of 2008<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600714/description | title=Publisher's description of Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure | publisher=Elsevier | access-date=2008-02-18}}</ref>).
=== Petition against Elsevier's parent organisation's involvement in weapon shows ===
An editorial in the medical journal [[The Lancet]] in September 2005 sharply criticized the journal's owner and publisher, Reed Elsevier, for its participation in the international arms trade.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE0DC1331F93AA3575AC0A9639C8B63&scp=2&sq=elsevier+lancet&st=nyt | publisher=New York Times | title= Biting Its Owner's Hand | date=2005-09-05}}</ref> Specifically, one of Elsevier's subsidiaries organized the [[Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition]](DSEi), a large arms fair in the U.K. The authors, appealing to the [[Hippocratic oath]] called for the publisher to ''divest itself of all business interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and well-being.''<ref>{{cite journal| title=Reed Elsevier and the international arms trade | journal=The Lancet| volume=366 | page = 889 | date=2005 | doi = 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)67306-0 | url = http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/09/322871.html | author=Feder, Gene et al. | pages=889}}</ref>
In the March 2007 issue of the '''The Lancet''', leading medical centers including the UK [[Royal College of Physicians]] urged Reed Elsevier to sever weapons ties. Doctors spoke out against Reed's role in the involvement of the organizing of exhibitions for the arms trade.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/53073/ | publisher= The-Scientist.com | title= Scientists step up Elsevier protest| date= | author=Bob Grant}}</ref> Reed Elsevier’s chief executive responded in June 2007 with a written statement<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.reed-elsevier.com/index.cfm?articleid=2084 | title=Reed Elsevier to exit the defence exhibitions sector| publisher=Reed Elsevier (press release) | date=2007-06-01 | access-date=2008-02-18}}</ref>, welcomed by authors of the petition,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/news/article/2434/journal-publishing-giant-will-halt-lucrative-business-in-weapons-bazaars | title=Journal-Publishing Giant Will Halt Lucrative Business in Weapons Bazaars | publisher=The Chronicle of Higher Education (News Blog) | date=2007-06-05 | access-date=2008-02-18}}</ref> announcing that it would sell the part of the company which handled military trade shows. Elsevier failed to sell off its exhibitions arm by the end of 2007<ref>{{cite news | url=http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article3107403.ece | title= Reed fails to sell arms fairs| author= | publisher=The Times Online | date=2007-12-20 |access-date=2008-02-18}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| date=2008-02-10 | title=Clarion’s £125m event | author=James Ashton | publisher= The Times Online | url=http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article3340859.ece | access-date=2008-02-18}}</ref>
.
==Imprints==
[[Imprints]] are brand names in publishing. Elsevier uses its imprints to market to different consumer segments. Many of them have previously been the company names of publishers that were purchased by Reed Elsevier.
*[[Academic Press]]
* Architectural Press
**[[T & A D Poyser]]
*[[Baillière Tindall]]
*[[BC Decker]]
*[[Butterworth-Heinemann]]
*[[Churchill Livingstone]]
* Focal Press
*[[GW Medical Publishing]]
*[[Hanley & Belfus]]
*[[Morgan Kaufmann]]
*[[Mosby]]
* Newnes
* North Holland
*[[Pergamon Press]]
*[[Saunders]]
* Syngress
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
==External links==
web sites pertaining to the company
* [http://www.elsevier.com Elsevier.com] Elsevier company website
* [http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/librarianshome.librarians Elsevier Librarians Home]
* [http://asia.elsevierhealth.com Elsevier Health Sciences Asia]
* [http://www.reed-elsevier.com/index.cfm?articleid=114 Reed Elsevier financial reports]
* [http://www.elsevier.com/framework_aboutus/pdfs/ElsevierHistory.pdf History of the modern company (PDF)]
non-Elsevier web sites
* [http://www.ull.ac.uk/historic/elzevierlondon.shtml Early history of Elsevier family]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4227702.stm BBC News: Reed criticised for 'arms link']
* [http://www.caat.org.uk/armsfairs/reed.php CAAT's page on Reed Elsevier]
* [http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?cat=15 Tom Stafford's blog on Elsevier]
{{Mergefrom|2collab|date=March 2008}}
[[Category:Companies of the Netherlands]]
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