Polar Research, the trusted peer - reviewed journal of the Norwegian Polar Institute, moved to an open access model almost one year ago. Since then, researchers and citizens of the world have enjoyed free access to the full archive as well as emerging scientific knowledge about the Arctic and Antarctic across disciplinary boundaries.

We are pleased to announce that the journal’s readership has expanded beyond expectations. Before 1 December the journal had already experienced over 100 000 full text downloads. Readers are accessing Polar Research from 146 countries and on every continent. Over 14 000 unique visitors have visited the journal this year.

Polar Research experienced a particularly heavy day of traffic on 24 August when National Geographic Daily News chose to report on “The oldest plesiosaur (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from Antarctica ”, by Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner et al. (http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/7265). The news item received nearly 7000 likes on Facebook and the article was visited on Polar Research’s website 800 times that day.

Two thematic cluster s are now under preparation. One comprises a small but diverse selection of papers stemming the IPY conference in Oslo in the summer of 2010, and the second is a more narrowly focussed set of papers based on presentations at the Human Impacts in the Arctic and Antarctic sessions of the same conference.

If you would like to receive an alert when these two clusters are published, as well as regular content, please visit the journal website and click on the 'E-alerts sign-up' button on the right side of the screen. You can also find Polar Research on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Links to all articles are posted upon their publication.