To access the Lyell Collection please ensure you are using the latest browser version of Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox. When downloading pdf articles please check your internet browser settings to allow pop-ups from the Lyell Collection site.
Please also view the Lyell Collection site help page for technical assistance.
More information is provided on the Resources for Libraries and Institutions page.
What is included in a Lyell Collection Complete subscription?
A Lyell Collection Complete subscription includes access to:
- Journal of the Geological Society
- Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology
- Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis
- Petroleum Geoscience
- Geoenergy
- Journal of Micropalaeontology (1982 to 2017)
- Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society
- Scottish Journal of Geology
- Geological Society of London Special Publications, Memoirs and Engineering Geology Special Publications
- Petroleum Geology Conference Proceedings (volumes 4 to 7)
- Transactions of the Geological Society of London
- Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow
- Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society
There are 2 options for LCC subscriptions: Online only or Online + print Special Publications.
Although there is most interest in the Lyell Collection Complete, it is possible to subscribe only to the Special Publications. However, Memoirs, the historical society transactions and Petroleum Geology Conference Proceedings are only be available to those subscribing to the Lyell Collection Complete.
Please note that ebook content is not included in any annual subscription options.
What is the cost to subscribe?
Please see our subscription rates page for single site prices. An academic subscription authorizes use at a localized site.
Please contact us if you require a multi-site or global access license (3 year rates are also available).
Lyell Collection product subscription rates are charged by the geographic location of the end user. All UK end user subscription payments must include VAT. EU VAT registered end users are not subject to the VAT charge (when their VAT number is included with order and payment).
How does my organisation sign up to a Read and Publish agreement?
Please see subscriber resources for more information. Our current agreements are listed here.
An Online and Print subscription includes print copies published in the subscription year and on-line access to all current and archival content.
Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society (2023) and Geological Society Special Publications are available as online only or online+print. Please note that Special Publications can be published online up to 8 weeks before hard copies are available for dispatch.
An Online only subscription includes online access to all current and archival content. From 2021 Journal of the Geological Society, Petroleum Geoscience, Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology & Hydrogeology and Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis are online only. From 2023 Scottish Journal of Geology is online only. From 2024 Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society will be online only.
How do I register as an access administrator?
Please contact us with your subscriber id (or full postal address or order reference) along with your preferred email address so we can link your login to the administrator account.
You will be able to login as an individual on the Lyell Collection and view access usage reports, view SUSHI details, manage additional administrators, update IP addresses (IPv4 or IPv6), configure link resolvers, manage your institutional logo and banner, and more.
Click on your name to view My Account or to logout.
The Access Entitlements section under My Account > Institutional Account lists any current and expired subscriptions but it does not list perpetual access details. The expiry date is the end date of the subscription. Online access is graced for 90 days after this date if your renewal payment is not received by the subscription expiry date. You can view perpetual access details here.
The Access Entitlements section in the Personal Details section lists any personal subscriptions or pay-per-view purchases.
What happens when my Institutional Affiliation expires?
This affiliation is not linked to your administrator login – you will still be able to login as an administrator after the 30 days expire.
When you login from within the IP range of an institution or login using an institutional email address, an affiliation is automatically added to Institutional Affiliation on My Account. If you do not login for 30 days the Institutional Affiliation will expire. You can login again using the institutional email address or from a recognised IP to renew the affiliation.
How do I access usage reports?
Usage data from 27 July 2022 is available through the Atypon institutional admin tool. In the Usage Reports area of My Account click on "Go to Atypon Insights" to select, view and download usage reports. Please opt in to receive a notification email when new usage reports are available.
Historic usage data from 2014 to 26 July 2022 (from the previous HighWire platform) is available as a ZIP file. Click on "Download Highwire Counter Statistics" in the Usage Reports area of My Account to download.
Can I download MARC records for book content?
MARC records are available for all book series available on the Lyell Collection. You will require MARC record reader/loader software to add these .mrc files to your library system. Please see the list of available files here.
Can I download KBART records for book and journal content?
KBART records for all journal, book series and monographs available on the Lyell Collection can be downloaded in .txt and .xlsx format
from this page. KBART Phase II Reports can also be downloaded from the Holdings area.
How do I establish a Shibboleth profile?
Shibboleth access is enabled for Lyell Collection titles. If your institution is part of a Shibboleth federation then please contact us with the relevant information and we will add it to your access record.
What happens to access if my organisation/company does not renew its annual subscription?
A 2024 subscriber who does not renew for 2025 can receive perpetual access to the relevant content published during 2024 (and previous subscribed subscription years*). Perpetual access is not automatic and must be requested by the subscriber when confirming non-renewal. Note that "In Progress" articles not published in final volume form by the end of a calendar year are not included in this right to perpetual access.
*A pre-2008 subscription does not entitle a user to access Lyell hosted past content. For subscriptions previous to 2008 the print copy was the copy of record and electronic access was a free add-on. Once a subscription lapsed, electronic access was switched off.
Subscription cancellations or amendments are not accepted after the payment has been processed.
How does my organisation/company obtain a free trial?
Please email Accucoms (UK, Europe, India, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand), PCG (USA and Canada) or the Publishing House with a preferred start date for the trial together with a contact name and email address, institution or company name, mailing address, IP addresses and a contact telephone number.
Please note that trials are not available to individuals - ask your librarian or administrator to request a trial for your institution or organization.
Can you provide a copy of the license terms?
In the absence of a separate license agreement the Geological Society of London adheres to the SERU guidelines, as published on the NISO SERU website - SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding
My institution subscribes to GeoScienceWorld (GSW) – is content the same?
Subscriber ids and logins for Lyell Collection subscriptions will not work on the GeoScienceWorld site. There is some overlap between the journal content on Lyell Collection and GeoScienceWorld (GSW). However, no book content is available on GeoScienceWorld by subscription and the deep Journal of the Geological Society archival material (QJGS, 1845 to 1970) and historical society transactions plus volumes prior to 2000 for Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society and Scottish Journal of Geology are only available via the Lyell Collection.
Is there a limit to the number of simultaneous users on one institutional/company subscription?
For institutional subscribers, there are no usernames or passwords to remember for access, and there is currently no limit on the number of readers from your institution who may access the Lyell Collection simultaneously.
Any user connecting from an authorized computer on your institutional network will be allowed access to the Lyell Collection. When someone attempts to access content, our host’s server checks to see if the requesting computer is within the list of internet IP address provided by a subscribing institution. If it is, the reader will be able to use all those services enabled for institutional readers.
How can I tell if my institution/company has subscribed to all or part of the Lyell Collection?
You should see the company or institution name at the top of the page confirming you're recognized as part of an institution (when recognised by a registered IP address or when using Shibboleth/OpenAthens).
If your institution has a subscription to all or part of the Lyell Collection, you'll automatically have access to the full text display and PDFs of the subscribed to content (if your IP address has been registered by your internal administrator and the subscription is current). You can view the IP address the site identifies here.
When you are recognised by the site the text above each article title in the table of contents will show your access entitlements:
"Open padlock | Free Access" - content available to all.
"Orange padlock | Open Access" - content available to all.
"Open padlock | Full Access" - this content is available as part of your current subscription.
If there is no text then this content is not available as part of your current subscription.
Please note that selected articles are only available in PDF format (all content published in 1999 and earlier, plus some later book content). If only the abstract and references are visible please click on "PDF" in the article header to view the full article.
How do I recommend my library subscribes to titles in the Lyell Collection?
If you would like to recommend your library subscribes to a Geological Society journal or book in the Lyell Collection, please complete the Journal and book recommendation form.
Can I purchase an individual book?
A whole book volume can be purchased on the Lyell Collection using pay-per-view. This allows online access for 7 days and is for personal use only. Each article pdf should be downloaded and saved locally during the purchased access period.
Selected eBooks are available for purchase as ePub files using pay-per-view for personal use only. The ePub must be downloaded within 10 days of purchase.
Special Publication Archives of volumes 1 to 500 are available outright for a one-off fee allowing perpetual access. The 500 volumes are available in six separate archives (Volumes 1 to 100, 101 to 200, 201 to 300, 301 to 400, 401 to 450 or 451 to 500) or as larger sets (1 to 300, 1 to 400 or 1 to 500).
My institution has a subscription to all or part of the Lyell Collection but I'm not able to see the full text of articles. Why is this happening and what should I do?
The IP address for your device is not being recognized by the site host. This failure is caused by one of four things:
- The internal administrator did not provide all the required IP addresses for your institution
- The internal administrator does not realize that some subnets of your institution are routed through a proxy server
- The subscription taken by your institution does not include the journal or book you are trying to access.
Talk to your librarian or administrator, and let them know you are having trouble. You can view the IP address the site identifies here. If they cannot solve the problem contact us to provide details of the problem.
Please note that selected articles are only available in PDF format (all content published in 1999 and earlier, plus some later book content). If only the abstract and references are visible please click on "PDF" in the article header to view the full article.
My organisation is a Corporate Patron member of the Geological Society of London – do we receive access to the Lyell Collection?
Access to Lyell Collection content is not included with a Corporate Patron membership. Please use pay-per-view or recommend the purchase of an annual corporate or institutional subscription.
Is the content preserved for the future in a digital archive?
GSL has partnered with the CLOCKSS Archive to ensure the digital preservation of Lyell Collection content for the future.
My library purchases print copies of book titles in the Lyell Collection but I can't get access to the content online.
If your institution subscribes to any of the Lyell Collection content then online access is enabled automatically, so the reason you cannot get online access is that your institution has not yet activated its institutional subscription or your IP address is not registered. Please notify your librarian or access administrator.
It is possible to purchase the Special Publications, Memoirs and Engineering Geology Special Publications in print only form, but the entitlement to online access to this content is conditional upon a subscription being purchased. If no subscription covering all Lyell Collection content has been purchased please talk to your librarian and encourage them to do so.
How can I access Lyell Collection content if I am not a GSL member and I don't have access through an institutional subscription?
If your institution does not subscribe, you can choose to join the Geological Society and access selected online content as a member benefit, or subscribe to content as an individual non-member. If you do not wish to do either of these you may purchase content on a pay-per-view basis.
If you are a member of EAGE, Association of Applied Geochemists, Edinburgh Geological Society, Geological Society of Glasgow or Yorkshire Geological Society please see the FAQ for other membership types. Member access is for personal use only.
If you have any further queries please contact us.