The guard changes

Abstract

On March 1, 1998, the 5-year term of the present editors of The Journal ends. A new team headed by Donald Y. M Leung as Editor will begin to receive submissions for publication (see notice elsewhere in The Journal). For a period of some months, the current editors will complete the review of manuscripts submitted before March 1 and decide which ones are worthy of publication. Nevertheless, this seems a good time to review the last 5 years. Although the pace in medical publishing is speeding up, the dominant theme for The Journal is continuity. In the field of allergy and immunology it has by far the largest circulation and, in the world literature, the greatest number of citations of its papers in the bibliographies of newly published papers. It prospers financially, allowing the AAAAI to offer its members one of the lowest subscription rates among scientific and clinical journals. If there is any concern, it is that the authors in this field who believe that their findings have general import sometimes choose to submit their manuscripts to less specialized and therefore more widely circulated journals. The editors have tried to make The Journal an attractive place to submit manuscripts by offering timely and discriminating review, and the publishers have helped by reducing the time required for typesetting, proofreading, and printing of issues. Currently, a first decision on a submitted manuscript is rendered, on average, in a little over 4 weeks. Furthermore, this issue will contain papers accepted for publication about 4 months ago. Few other specialty journals offer publication this rapid. Accomplishing more rapid publication required a number of actions. In early 1996, because of a backlog of accepted papers, the delay from acceptance to publication approached 8 months. At the existing rate of publication of 140 pages a month, the delay appeared likely to become even longer. To reduce the backlog, the Academy's Board of Directors authorized the publication of 400 additional pages in three issues during the summer of 1996 (at a cost of over $100,000). This trimmed the waiting period to less than 6 months. To accommodate the increasing number of acceptable papers, a new format was developed that used smaller type for text, abstract, and titles. Although this may not seem a great change, it allows the publication of at least one more original paper per issue. The new format began to appear in March 1997. Brevity was encouraged by charging authors for pages in excess of seven per article. The editors shortened papers by eliminating redundant or unnecessary figures or tables and reducing the length of the text and numbers of references. These measures have successfully reduced the backlog to near the minimum required for printing and publication. The Journal has functions other than the publication of original research. To help clinicians understand rapidly progressing research in inflammation, the Mechanisms of Allergy interest section of the Academy offered to organize a series of reviews called “Updates on cells and cytokines.” They obtained support from Hoechst Marion Roussel to underwrite the costs of printing so that this series does not subtract from the number of pages available for original research papers. A guest editorial committee composed of David Essayan, Charity C. Fox, Francesca Levi-Schaffer, and Rafeul Alam has commissioned authors and edited content. The first review in this series appeared in January 1997, and further reviews have appeared monthly since that time. Reviews and editorials on other subjects have been commissioned by the regular editors. Submissions to The Journal have come increasingly from a varied array of disciplines and represent more and more sophisticated laboratory, clinical, epidemiological, and statistical methods. These transcend the expertise of any one individual to select and edit the best of these manuscripts. As have many other journals, we met this challenge by the appointment of associate editors covering several areas of research. Any successes of The Journal in the past 5 years have depended very much on the efforts of Bruce S. Bochner in inflammation research, Robert P. Schleimer in pharmacology, and Jonathan P. Schneck in immunology. As we are all located at one institution, frequent consultation among the editors has been easy, and we hope it has resulted in well-informed editorial decisions. The editors have paid particular attention to the quality of computer-generated graphics, upgrading the instructions to authors and reviewing figures for ease of comprehension. The principle editorial work, however, continues to be carried out by more than 500 referees who review manuscripts without pay and provide the editors with opinions about the quality of the work presented. Without their freely given help, The Journal could not exist. The editors also wish to acknowledge the able assistance of Ms. Jeanine Columbo and Ms. Ellen Reather at the editorial office. They make publication of The Journal possible.