50th Anniversary Opening for New IUCr Editorial Offices

Fifty years to the day after the IUCr joined the ICSU family of scientific unions, Dr Robert Evans, one of the founding fathers of the Union, visited Chester to open formally the latest extension to the editorial offices.

On Monday, Apr. 7, 1997, Dr Evans described the letter written on a Monday half a century before by Prof. F. J. M. Stratton, holder of the Chair of Astronomy in Cambridge and Secretary General of the International Council of Scientific Unions. This letter of admission marked the creation of a new Union to meet the needs of crystallographers, a community that wished to find its voice in a scientific journal edited and produced by its members and for its members. The demise of Zeitschrift für Kristallographie, a victim of the war years, had left a gap in the literature and an opportunity for the establishment of a new journal with aspirations to the highest quality. Acta Crystallographica was born from the needs of the crystallographic community of the time, and became the house journal of that community.

In its early years, the journal was produced entirely without professional editorial assistance; but as the era of the gentleman (and lady) scientist slid gently into history, the increasing volume of published research and the growing demands on the time of academic editors prompted the Union to search for a salaried Technical Editor. Durward Cruickshank, Treasurer from 1966 to 1970 and General Secretary and Treasurer from 1970 to 1972, explained how the quest for a suitable candidate produced a shortlist of hopefuls resident in England, France and Switzerland. With the choice of Mr S. A. Bryant came the consequent establishment of an editorial office in his home town of Chester, a historic city with roots in the Roman Occupation and a long mercantile and ecclesiastical tradition through the middle ages.

Over the years, Acta Crystallographica has grown and divided to cater for particular fields of interest within the discipline. The journal is now produced in four sections, entitled "Foundations of Crystallography", "Structural Science", "Crystal Structure Communications" and "Biological Crystallography". With two other journals, Journal of Applied Crystallography and the new interdisciplinary Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, the Union's stable of publications now requires a large and qualified professional staff. As the journals grew, the Editorial Office moved to a variety of locations in Chester, arriving in 1979 in the Georgian Abbey Square that forms the cathedral close. The most recent growth in staff, to accommodate the further expansion of the publishing programme and the development of electronic production and distribution, has led to an expansion into the neighbouring No. 6 Abbey Square.

The Editorial staff outside the Abbey Square offices. Back row: Gillian Holmes, Sean Conway, Carol Cook, Andrea Hill, Lorraine Rathbone. Middle row: Mike Hoyland, Nicola Ashcroft, Dave Holden, Amanda Berry, Tony Weight. From row: Katie Moore, Susan King, Peter Strickland, Brian McMahon, Louise Clark-Jones, Jill Bradshaw. Ailsa Monahan and David Hoare were absent when the photograph was taken.

Behind the urbane frontage, eighteen staff now work in pleasant and comfortable offices, equipped with the most modern computing equipment. Twelve graduate staff work on the editing and data checking of papers, and, increasingly, on the computer-assisted typesetting and production of the journals. Reflecting the diversity of interests among crystallographers, the editorial staff have diverse backgrounds, in chemistry, physics, life sciences, and even oceanography and astronomy. A four-strong research and development team, headed by Brian McMahon, maintains the office computer network and works on increasing the use of new technology. The office, which is under the overall control of the Managing Editor, Peter Strickland, is kept running by two secretaries, Lorraine Rathbone and Carol Cook.

Peter Strickland

The main work of the editorial staff is the editing, production and indexing of the Union's journals. In 1996, the six journal titles published over 7500 pages in 42 issues. All articles are technically edited in Chester before being typeset. The technical editing involves checking the correct use of language, ensuring that the papers conform to the general style of the journal, and corresponding with authors and editors to resolve any ambiguities in the scientific content of the papers. E-mail and fax communications are used increasingly to ensure rapid publication of the journals. After two proof-reading stages and incorporation of changes indicated by authors on their proofs, the articles are sent for printing. This is currently carried out in England.

In recent years there has been a move towards full electronic production of the journals and in 1996 over 70% of papers were typeset from authors' computer files. The developments in electronic publishing have been carefully planned to be of maximum benefit to crysta1lographers, and the crystallographic information file (CIF) has been central to these developments.

Acta Crystallographica Section C is produced solely from CIF submissions. Submitted papers are first checked using a suite of programs that test that the reported structures are reasonable, complete and self-consistent. The results of the checking are sent to the Co-editor reviewing the paper. Once a paper has been accepted for publication, the proofs are then typeset directly from the CIFs. The latest development for Section C is the introduction of fully electronic 'CIF-Access' papers. which are published on the IUCr web pages and only listed in the Contents pages of the printed journal. These articles, which consist of a CIF file that has been fully checked, and its associated structure factors are published within two months of submission.

CIF and the industry-standard SGML document mark-up language are essential components in the evolution towards data-rich, interactive and multimedia presentations. Authors may already contribute to this process by submitting their manuscripts using the templates that are being added to the IUCr ftp server.

Louise Clarke-Jones

The first steps towards the electronic journal are seen in the online contents pages, data archive and search facilities on the IUCr web pages. Other web services, such as the facility for authors to track their papers in production, information about other publications of the Union, CIF software and documentation, and the World Database of Crystallographers, are provided by the Editorial Office. These services are an integral component of the pan-crystallography information network sponsored by the IUCr, which uses Chester as its hub.

Many other essential activities of the Union are carried out in the Chester establishment, from the editing of the standard reference series of International Tables for Crystallography volumes, through the administrative work of the Executive Secretariat in separate offices at No. 2 Abbey Square.

As the Union moves into its second half-century, amid ever more rapid changes in the way science is carried out, and in the way that scientific results and theories are published and communicated, the visit of Dr Evans provided a welcome link to its earliest days. Despite the breathtaking changes in journal production and telecommunications, the earliest aspirations of the Union's founders to produce a journal of the highest standards remain as an inspiration and motivation to today's staff.