The items in this files are:
John Helliwell, editor-in-chief, opened the meeting by describing developments over the last 3 years. One major project had been the production of an electronic index, now accessible on the IUCr World Wide Web(WWW) pages; this allows a search on author names and keywords over all IUCr journals for the last 50 years. Acta Cryst A had celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1998 with a special supplement containing review papers, which was also produced as a hardback book. (See review in 'Crystallography News'June 99 p47. ) The Journal of Applied Crystallography (JAC) celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1998. The Journal of Synchrotron Radiation (JSR) published two conference proceedings, from SRI'97 in Japan and XAFS X held in Chicago in May 99. Proceedings such as these are now financially self-supporting as they are published from the authors' 'camera ready copy'. Acta Cryst D receives so many biological structure papers that they have found it necessary to publish monthly, causing more staff to be hired at the Chester office to handle the increased volume of papers.
A major development is 'Crystallography Journals On-line', launched during the Congress, which covers new issues of all 6 journals; it is freely accessible during 1999. You should bookmark http://journals.iucr.org now! Complete text of all the journals, (except for Acta Cryst C, which will follow soon) is available in two formats, HTML or PDF, 3D molecular viewing is supported and citation links can be followed. Future plans include publication of the proceedings of XAFS XI which is to be held in Japan. This will mean some technical problems due to the need to provide word processing templates in Japanese as well as English.
The photograph shows editors and IUCr editorial staff who met in Manchester for a Closed Commission meeting just prior to IUCr XVIII; the editors toured the Chester Office to see the production process for themselves. IUCr income comes 70% from journal sales, 10% investments, 5% sales of the International Tables, 5% delegates subscriptions and 10% other (some OUP books). The older journals produce income used to finance the start-up costs of newer ones, which can take 20 years to recover those costs. The on-line journals project has also needed investment; the content is produced by the Chester office but will soon be served from a commercial ISP (Internet Service Provider) site; in due course it will be extended to include scanned images of all articles in back issues. John thanked the 2 retiring editors, Mike Glazer from JAC and Syd Hall from Acta Cryst C, (both seated on the front row in the photograph) and welcomed 2 new ones, Gernot Kostorz, (JAC) and George Ferguson (Acta Cryst C). John also expressed the editors' thanks to all the IUCr staff for their efforts to make the journals such a success.
Peter Strickland then described the 'Electronification of the Editorial
office' after some discussion amongst the assembled editors as to whether
they would accept the term 'electronification' as a valid word in the
English Language! Brian McMahon spoke of plans to integrate the IUCr
journals into an expanded and comprehensive web-based information service
for crystallography. The
abstracts for this Congress had been printed on
CD-ROM for the first time,
with help from the ISIS Facility and Oxford
Cryosystems. This CD-ROM also contains Ewald's book '50 years of X-ray
diffraction', snapshots of the IUCr, BCA and ACA websites in July 99,
scenic views of Scotland and some free software. It will be issued as an
Acta Cryst A55 supplement. Lachlan Cranswick (DL) is working with Brian on
a 'Crystallographic NeXus' CD-ROM containing freely distributable software
and web snapshots for free distribution to developing countries who have
insufficient telephone lines to browse the Internet easily.
Discussion from each co-editor followed but at this point I returned to welcome members at the BCA stand in the Exhibition area. Kate Crennell
Editor's note: For those unfamiliar with any of the 3 letter
acronymns used above, I keep a list on the BCA web site at URL
http:://bca.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/BCA/CNews/TLAs.html
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