Lyell Collection

Launched in 2007 to celebrate 200 years of the Geological Society of London, the Lyell Collection is an online collection comprising of the Society’s journal titles, Special Publications and key book series. Cutting edge science sits alongside important historical material, all captured and presented to the highest electronic standards and benefiting from the extensive functionality of HighWire Press’ platform.

Visit the Lyell Collection at www.lyellcollection.org

The Lyell Collection in a nutshell

Titles included:

Journal of the Geological Society
Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology
Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis
NEW for 2010 - Scottish Journal of Geology
NEW for 2010 - Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society
Transactions of the Geological Society
The Geological Society’s prestigious Special Publications
Engineering Geology Special Publications
Memoirs book series
Petroleum Geology Conferences series

Features:

18 000 peer-reviewed articles
260 000 pages of Earth science content
Full-text archives back to 1811
Selected open-access articles
Free public access to alerts, search functions and abstracts
Full electronic functionality and searchable content throughout
Full-text in HTML and PDF format
Active reference linking via CrossRef, GeoRef and ISI
Free full-text linking to many other key Earth science journals, including GeoScienceWorld
eTOC (electronic Table of Contents) and research alerts available to subscribers and non-subscribers

Lyell Collection - Frequently Asked Questions

Journals

The Lyell Collection features the following journals which have been captured back to their launch issues:

Journal of the Geological Society has been digitized back to 1845 and some 6000 peer reviewed articles on 100 000 pages are available.
Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology is available from its launch year in 1967, and features some 1200 peer-reviewed articles over 15 000 pages.
Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis is available from its launch year in 2001.
Scottish Journal of Geology has been digitized back to 1965 and will be available from mid-January 2010. Access is available to members of the Glasgow and Edinburgh Geological Societies and to non-member subscribers.
Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society has been published without a break since 1839 and is now available in its entirety on the Lyell Collection. Access is available to YGS members and to non-member subscribers.
Transactions of the Geological Society is the deep historical archive of the Society, published 1811-1856.

All new issues will be available online immediately upon publication.

Special Publications

Special Publications are the Geological Society’s flagship series. Currently publishing at the rate of around 20 volumes per year, the Special Publications are renowned throughout the global geosciences community and represent state of the art treatments of their subject matter and cover all branches of the Earth sciences, both established and emerging. Some 280 volumes were available at launch, comprising 6000 peer-reviewed articles over 100 000 pages.

All new volumes will be added to the collection as they are published.

Key book series

The Engineering Geology Special Publications, Geological Society Memoirs and Petroleum Geology Conferences series are available, comprising of a further 50 volumes, 1000 articles and chapters and 15 000 pages.
These titles are only available to libraries subscribing to the Lyell Collection Complete package or Fellows of the Society. (Fellows: access to books published in the current or three previous calendar years is only available with a Full Book Collection subscription).

Will more content be added?

Each new journal issue, Special Publication volume or key book title will be added to the Lyell Collection ahead of print publication to ensure the Collection is kept fully relevant and up-to-date. The Geological Society also plans to add further journal and book series as the Lyell Collection develops.

In all, around 10 000 pages of new peer-reviewed Earth science content will be added each year.

How is the content structured?

Geological Society journals and Special Publications comprise illustrated peer-reviewed articles with an introductory abstract and full reference list of cited material. These elements are all captured within the Lyell Collection, with abstracts and key bibliographic information being freely available to the public. Where key book titles are published in chapter format a specially created extract for each chapter is available in place of the abstract.

In addition to published articles, preliminary pages, introductions and covers have been captured for Special Publications and book titles, and historical editorial material captured for the older 20th and 19th century JGS volumes.

References are all actively linked to cited sources allowing easy navigation from one article to another.

How much content is available for free?

The Lyell Collection is not an open-access collection, but the Geological Society has tried to make key elements as accessible as possible. Key online functionality, including article browsing, quick and advanced searching, eToc and research alerts, and GoogleScholar links are all available for free. In addition, all abstracts and chapter extracts, as well as the introductory article of each Special Publication are freely available to the public, as is the first chapter in key book titles.

The full text of all articles cited in subscribed-to content, and articles which are hosted by HighWire Press (including GeoScienceWorld), are also available free to subscribers.

Finally, all articles authored by Charles Lyell, after whom the Collection is named, are available on a fully open-access basis.

Follow this link for further information on access to free content.

Why is the Lyell Collection so named?

The Lyell Collection is named after Charles Lyell, the eminent nineteenth-century geologist whose work included the influential book, Principles of Geology, and the establishment of the Principle of Uniformitarianism. To mark the launch of the Lyell Collection all articles authored by Charles Lyell have been designated open access.

Testimonials to Geological Society publications

The Geological Society of London is a leading publisher of Earth science literature and its journals, Special Publications and books are widely purchased not only in the UK and Europe, but in North America, the Middle East and Far East. Geological Society titles are of outstanding quality and widely praised by individuals and librarians alike.

To read comments by North American librarians, click here.

Subscription options

The Lyell Collection is available to libraries and Fellows of the Geological Society on a subscription basis. Content which is not subscribed to can be accessed on a pay-per-view basis.

Apart from the free material described above, content is now available to users on the basis of their subscription entitlements. If your company or institution is considering subscribing, it may be possible to arrange a free trial period.

Follow the links below for details.

Access for libraries

Access for Fellows

Access for individuals

Access to free content

Access for Developing Countries

Pay-per-view access

Frequently Asked Questions

To be kept informed of developments email 2007@geolsoc.org.uk.

For library subscriptions: to order the Lyell Collection or individual journal titles, or request further information or a free trial, please contact:

In UK and Europe:
Accucoms BV, Schipolweg 101b, 2316 XC Leiden, The Netherlands
Email: geologicalsociety@accucoms.com
Telephone: +31 71 524 7630. Fax: +31 71 528 0628.
Web: www.accucoms.com

In USA and Canada:
Geological Society at PCG, 875 Massachusetts Avenue 7th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Email: geologicalsociety@pcgplus.com
Telephone: +1 617 395 4065. Fax: +1 617 354 6875.
Web: www.pcgplus.com

All other regions:
Geological Society Publishing House, Unit 7 Brassmill Enterprise Centre, Brassmill Lane, Bath, BA1 3JN, UK
Email: sales@geolsoc.org.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1225 445046. Fax: +44 (0)1225 442836.