London

The publishers of the world's leading scientific journals have agreed to adopt common procedures that will allow a ‘seamless web’ linking references in the articles they publish to the source papers in their respective publications through the World-Wide Web.

The agreement was reached in Frankfurt on Tuesday by 300 industry executives attending a meeting of the International Association of Science, Technology and Medical Publishers. It is the result of discussions and trials that have been taking place over the past two years.

The purpose of what is described as “the world's largest research web” will be to ensure that any paper cited in the electronic versions of the journals covered — including the Nature family of journals — will be directly accessible via the web.

It is expected that eventually between five and ten million scientific articles and their references will be interconnected in this way. A final plan is to be discussed at a meeting in London in December.

“This simple act begins to deliver on the full promise of the web,” says Robert Campbell, chair of the association. “We are working together to serve our primary constituencies: the authors and readers who comprise the world community of scientists.”