Innovation and development characterise the journals of the IUCr

The Journals Open Commission Meeting started with a survey of the IUCr journals and recent innovations (submission system, open access, interactive figures) given by Peter Strickland, Managing Editor. It then took the form of reports from the Editors on the development of each title over the past triennium.

Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundations of Crystallography continues to attract important articles across a broad range of topics. The diversity of this range was illustrated by Dieter Schwarzenbach in the articles highlighted by the IUCr Newsletter in the previous three years. There were some additional areas from which Acta A hoped to attract contributions, but a continuing concern was an overall diminution in the number of papers contributed, which suggested not a fall in quality of the journal, but perhaps the more worrying prospect of a decline in fundamental crystallographic research.

Carol Brock also highlighted the diversity of topics covered in Acta Crystallographica Section B: Structural Science, and expressed great satisfaction with the quality of research reported. It was felt that the journal was fulfilling its aspirations to be the natural home for structural science publications, and it continued to attract a significant number of very good papers.

George Ferguson, the outgoing Editor of Acta Crystallographica C: Crystal Structure Communications, reported that the overall quality of papers remained very high, although there was some increased editorial workload in handling a number of submissions that fell considerably short of the submission requirements. He stressed that any impression that Acta C was hostile to structures that triggered a large number of checkCIF alerts was erroneous. The journal welcomed reports of any such structures that illustrated novel or significant features, so long as the reasons for the technical flaws were fully discussed.

Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography continued to attract high-quality articles, as reported by Ted Baker, and is having a growing impact on the literature in this field. It was felt that the transfer of crystallization and short structure reports to its sister journal Acta F helped Acta D to concentrate on articles that provide new insights into structure, chemistry or biology.

Bill Clegg, outgoing Editor of Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online, discussed the rapid growth and evolution of the journal over its short history. In many ways the E in the journal name stood for experimental: it was the Union's first online-only journal; it pioneered new ways to present and package structure reports with compact presentations and rich supplementary information; and it was now the Union's first venture into a fully open-access publication. The launch of open access had been successful with more than 300 papers per month now being submitted.

Howard Einspahr described how the other online-only journal, Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications, was also characterized by innovation. He emphasised the technical developments for streamlining the reporting of biological macromolecule structures, and for capturing more easily the essential information required in crystallization communications.

The continuing strengths and diversity of Journal of Applied Crystallography were highlighted by Gernot Kostorz, Editor-in-Chief, reporting on behalf of Anke Pyzalla. The journal offered a particularly rich selection of different types of paper (cited in many other journals with an average citation half-life exceeding ten years), and was celebrating its 40th anniversary with confidence in the future.

Denny Mills, outgoing Editor of Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, emphasised its standing within the synchrotron radiation community, its links to such resources as the lightsources.org Highlights page, and its provision of facility information pages. He also described how well placed the journal was to serve fourth-generation technologies, and to cover developments in areas such as free-electron lasers. 

Profiles of the individual journals and special aspects of refereeing and editing were briefly discussed, and the meeting was closed with particular thanks to the Chester staff and the more than 150 scientists serving on the various Editorial Boards of the journals.