A new agreement on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation has been signed with scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group (NPG). The agreement enables researchers, students and citizens across the country to access the Nature archives from 1869 to 2011. The agreement could provide site license access to up to 800 academic and not-for-profit institutions, including public libraries, in more than 100 cities throughout Russia.
The deal was organised and facilitated by the National Electronic Information Consortium of Russia (NEICON), one of the largest consortia in the country. All NEICON members will have access to the Nature archive online, under the agreement. Members include non-commercial institutions, academics, medical educational and research institutions, public scientific and special libraries and not-for-profit organizations. The archive agreement builds on an existing site license agreement, providing more than 150 NEICON members with site license access to 10 NPG journals.
The mission of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation is to develop the country's academic output, which is crucial to achieving stability and development in Russia. NEICON is Russian national library consortium, founded in 2002 as a non-for-profit organisation by 3 leading Russian libraries and 2 foundations.
