The editors of the Journal of Human Genetics and Springer-Verlag are pleased to announce a new service for our authors and readers: Online First, the quick online publication of articles shortly after receipt of the corrected proofs. The electronic version of the Journal of Human Genetics used to appear at the same time as the print journal, but from now on the electronic version of all articles will be available to subscribers via the Internet weeks before the printed version appears. This means an enormous reduction in publication time. It will no longer be necessary for manuscripts to wait until the next available print issue.

As each article becomes ready for Online First publication, it will be published on the Web with its own publication date. Each article will receive a permanent, unique international identification code, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which is registered with the International DOI Foundation (http://www.doi.org). Contributions published Online First but not yet available in print may be cited by journal title and DOI only. Furthermore, the DOI forms part of the article's URL (Web address) and can be used to access the article before the print version has appeared (e.g., http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10038-003-0002-x).

The DOI is never changed and can be used, for example, to create hyperlinks between Online First articles. The print version also includes the DOI and date of online publication.

The appearance of an Online First article on SpringerLink constitutes official publication, so articles cannot subsequently be changed or withdrawn. Any corrections that might be necessary will be in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Each Online First article will be announced in SpringerLink alert, which is a free alerting service (http://link.springer.de/alert). A list of articles for the Journal of Human Genetics that have been published Online First but have not yet appeared in a printed issue can be found on the Springer Web pages: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/10038/tocs.htm or http://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/journals/10038/tocs.htm by clicking "Online First". For further information on Online First, go to http://link.springer.de/doi/online-first.htm.

As a courtesy to authors, Springer-Verlag automatically supplies links from the list of references cited in an article to those journal publications that are available on the Internet via CrossRef. When further links become available they will be added to the online version of an article in SpringerLink. For further information please contact http://link.springer.de/features/xref.htm.