Launched at the beginning of February, Project Prospect is an exciting new initiative from RSC Publishing. The aim of Project Prospect is to make the science within RSC journal articles machine-readable through semantic enrichment - the integration of metadata into text. Readers can now click on named compounds and scientific concepts in an electronic journal article to download structures, understand topics, or link through to electronic databases.

Developed together with academic partners, Project Prospect is the first service of its scope from a primary research publisher.

Feedback received about Project Prospect has been overwhelmingly positive. Glen Newton at the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information describes Project Prospect as '...an exciting effort by the RSC. As someone working in the area of text retrieval and semantic web, this is a very exciting prospect.'

Ed Pentz, executive director at CrossRef is equally impressed: '[Project Prospect] is fantastic. I've just seen the future of the journal,' he enthuses.   

Soft Matter author, Alejandro Marangoni from the University of Guelph is really pleased at how his recent paper benefited: 'This functionality rounds off the scientific quality of the work and makes it more accessible to scientists from other disciplines. I thank you very much for improving my article in this way! Another truly innovative step by RSC.'

With new and improved features Analytical Abstracts (AA) has been thoroughly redeveloped to increase usability, making it an ideal, if not essential, web resource for researchers interested in analytical and bioanalytical science. AA abstracts from over 100 publications and offers a high level of coverage from all areas of the field.

The search functions have been significantly improved with the introduction of a basic search box on the front page. However, the advanced search is still available so you can search by index terms such as 'matrix' and 'analyte' or by bibliographic data. There is also a new browse by subject area option.

Another useful feature is the ability to export results to both email and, importantly, to reference management software, so there is no need to re-key all that information.

All-in-all the new look AA is much improved and should be a key tool for those interested in analytical research. 

Why not try it for yourself ?

The Sheraton Hotel in Brussels, Belgium, was the setting for the third triennial RSC Editors' Symposium, held from 17th-19th February. Around 125 RSC Publishing Editorial Board members travelled from all over the world, including Europe, Canada, USA, South Africa and New Zealand, to join 70 RSC staff in a series of board meetings and interactive workshops spanning the RSC publishing portfolio.

The symposium offered delegates useful insight into all aspects of the publishing process and generated an abundance of feedback and innovative ideas.

The RSC's latest technological innovations, Project Prospect and the RSC eBook Collection, were also very positively received. The Symposium Banquet, located in a spectacular renovated 1930s theatre, provided a wonderful finale to an extremely productive weekend. All pertains to a bright future for RSC Publishing.