60 years of Acta Crystallographica High Impact Journals

The Commission on Journals, the largest commission of the IUCr, met in August 2008 in Osaka prior to the 21st General Assembly and Congress. This year the commission meeting was particularly special as it marked 60 years since the first volume of Acta Crystallographica was published and 40 years since the launch of the Journal of Applied Crystallography. The Journal of Synchrotron Radiation also enters its 15th year since its first publication on November 1, 1994. There was a sense of achievement with clear goals, objectives and challenges which lie ahead for maintaining leading positions of the journals and serving the community on a very wide front of science disciplines. One obvious mark of achievement is reflected in the ISI impact factors for our journals in 2007. Four of the top six positions in crystallography were occupied by IUCr journals. The Journal of Applied Crystallography was the highest ranked IUCr journal with an impact factor of 3.63, with the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation being second with an impact factor of 2.98. The Journal of Synchrotron Radiation also occupied second place in the Instruments and Instrumentation category behind Applied Spectroscopy Reviews and well ahead of Nuclear Instruments and Methods, whose impact factor was 1.11 in 2007. The Journal of Synchrotron Radiation occupied fourth place in the Optics category ahead of Physical Review A (2.89), Journal of the Optical Society of America B (2.03) and Applied Optics (1.7). The average publication time during this period has been reduced, falling from 6.5 months in 2004 to 5.0 months in 2007. Denny Mills, one of the main editors of the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation who retired from the journal after the General Assembly, emphasized the achievements of the journal and its unique standing in the expanding synchrotron radiation community. He also described how well placed the journal was to serve the evolving communities of the fourth-generation light sources including free-electron lasers. Delegates of the Commission on Journals during their meeting in Osaka were pictured on the cover of Vol. 16, #4. A detailed report on the commission meeting is given at www.iucr.org/news/meeting-reports/21st-iucr-congress/commissiononjournals-satellite-meeting.