Heartis proud to announce the next stage in its evolution —a full text web site which went live in December 1998. The internet has long been an invaluable resource for science and medicine, and many publishers have recognised its potential to disseminate important research and to increase awareness of their journals internationally. Heart has had an internet presence for some time but its website was rather basic (just tables of contents and general information). The new site has the same address—www.heartjnl.com—but it has moved to California.

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Heart has joined its illustrious cousin theBMJ and many other important medical journals at HighWire Press, a division of Stanford University’s Green Library. HighWire’s mission is to “foster research and instruction by providing a more direct link between the writers and readers of scholarly materials”.1 As visitors to theBMJ’s website (www.bmj.com) will know, online journals can have many features that add value to the important research contained within the print version. Each issue ofHeart will be available in full (including figures and tables), in addition there is a fully searchable archive going back to October 1997 (as well as abstracts and tables of contents from much earlier issues), instant, free access to Medline to expand your search, and “customised @lerts”, which will automatically alert you to newly published material of particular interest to your area of research. The “collected resources” feature allows you to search quickly for material in subspeciality areas. In future it will be possible to search across all the journals at HighWire Press including Circulation, Circulation Research, Heart and Circulatory Physiology, and Journal of Clinical Investigation to name a few.eHeart also links directly witheBMJ and other journals in the BMJ Publishing Group stable.

Each issue of Heart will be put online at the same time as the print version is distributed; therefore, readers outside the UK will not have to wait for days or weeks to enjoy the journal. Access to eHeart will be free until July 1999. Various pricing models for subscriptions to the print and electronic versions of Heart are under discussion, so watch the website for more information as it becomes available.

The rapid advances in information technology and the immense penetration of the internet around the world means that important medical research can reach more people more quickly.Heart is pleased to embrace these advances with both eHeart andCardioCollection 2; however, we aim to fulfil the needs of authors and readers so we welcome your comments on these developments both through the website and more traditional methods.