210 Russian Academic Institutions Gain Access to Ideal Electronic Scientific Library.

Business/Technology Editors

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 26, 2000

The Russian Foundation of Basic Research and the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow have signed an agreement to license IDEAL, the pioneering online scientific library. This agreement establishes Academic Press' presence in Russia, where more institutions are expected to license IDEAL in the near future.

This Academic Press Print and Electronic Access (APPEAL) licensing agreement grants IDEAL to 210 academic institutions in Russia, providing online access to approximately two million end-users.

"With the 12-month license agreement with Academic Press, IDEAL - a quick and direct source of leading-edge information - is available to Russian mathematicians, scientists, researchers and students throughout Russia," comments V. N. Zaitsev, president of the Russian Library Foundation. "We are very grateful to Academic Press that the agreement includes all libraries in Russia that have Internet access. I am sure that use of IDEAL will greatly benefit the foundation as well as the academy and many academic users here in Russia."

The Russian Foundation of Basic Research and the Russian Academy of Sciences are government-funded bodies dedicated to bringing valuable electronic resources to Russian researchers. By licensing IDEAL, both groups seek to enhance resources, especially in the fields of mathematics and science, which will now be available to academic institutions and researchers in Russia.

Academic Press is the publisher of IDEAL, the International Digital Electronic Access Library - now licensed in more than 20 countries by more than 1500 academic institutions and accessible to nine million authorized users worldwide. Academic Press, a Harcourt Science & Technology company, is an international multiple-media publisher of high-quality journals, book serials, major reference works, databases, textbooks and monographs. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Harcourt, Inc., Harcourt General (NYSE: H) is a leading global multiple-media publisher, providing educational, training and assessment products and services to classroom, corporate, professional and consumer markets.

For more information, visit www.idealibrary.com.

IDEAL is a registered trademark of Harcourt, Inc.