The publication, called Nature Digest, is comprised of a monthly selection of news, news features, and opinion articles translated into Japanese from Nature and NPG's daily online news
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announces launch of its first all Japanese language publication online.
This marks another step in NPG's strategy to develop a strong publishing program in the Asia-Pacific region.
The publication, called Nature Digest, is comprised of a monthly selection of news, news features, and opinion articles translated into Japanese from Nature and NPG's daily online news service.
In addition, Nature Digest carries original commissioned news features written by Japanese journalists and it has a bilingual section for the study of scientific English with translations of an article next to the original English with an explanation of the translation between.
Nature Digest, edited by Itsumi Kitahara, a former editorial staff member of Japan's popular science magazine Newton who now works for NPG Nature Asia-Pacific in Tokyo, is intended for a broad scientific audience of all ages.
The print publication has been sold in Japan to institutions and individuals for the past year but this is the first time for it to be available online in full text form.
Individual articles can be read in PDF format or a complete PDF issue can be downloaded and printed.
Nature Digest has been successfully submitted to CrossRef as NPG's first foreign language publication.
The July and August issues of the publication are freely available online (after registration) on nature.com until the end of this month.
Thereafter, access will require a personal online subscription or institutions can obtain access through a site license.
This is the first time for a general science publication of this type in Japanese to be made available to institutions through a site license.
Strong uptake of the print version by institutions in Japan suggests the online version will also be popular, particularly with students.
