SpringerBriefs in Crystallography

It is my pleasure to announce the launch of a new series of crystallography monographs under the title SpringerBriefs in Crystallography. They cover a new discipline within the SpringerBriefs series, which publishes concise monographs with an intermediate scope. SpringerBriefs already covers 84 fields, spanning a wide range from natural sciences to law, social sciences and more; crystallography is now the 85th field.

The new series is published under the auspices of the IUCr and all the manuscripts will be peer-reviewed by the series editors, as well as external reviewers when necessary. It fills the gap between articles published by the IUCr journals and full monographs.

The IUCr publishes several types of articles in its journals:

•         Research Papers, which are full-length manuscripts that normally do not exceed 15 journal pages (about 15 000 words)

•         Short Communications, for the presentation of topics of limited scope or for preliminary announcements of novel research findings

•         Lead Articles, authoritative, comprehensive and forward-looking reviews of major areas of research interest (by invitation)

•         Feature Articles, focused surveys covering recent advances in an area of current research, which do not aim to be comprehensive, and are generally about ten journal pages (10 000 words)

•         Topical Reviews, which aim to capture the current trends of a field and are expected to be relatively short (about 6000 words and a maximum of 50 references, with half of those having been published in the last three years)

•         Letters to the Editor, which may deal with non-technical aspects of crystallography, its role, its propagation, the proper function of its Societies etc.

•         Scientific Commentaries, which discuss articles of particular importance for the readership of the journal.

Full monographs spanning hundreds of pages are published in the IUCr/OUP monographs, and textbooks in the IUCr/OUP texts (https://www.iucr.org/publications/iucr-oup).

SpringerBriefs in Crystallography aims at publishing shorter monographs, typically between 50 and 125 pages, where specific topics are dealt with more in detail with respect to what one could do in a Lead Article or Topical Review, in particular with a more pronounced accent on the background. Also, more space is given to some fundamentals, which would not find a place in a Lead Article or Topical Review, with the aim of providing the reader with a more pedagogical introduction (whenever suitable) without the need to look for it in a separate text. Publications in this series help support the IUCr Outreach and Education Fund.

The website of the new series is available here, where you can find more details as well as the responsible editor contact information who, upon request, can provide you with a proposal form. On submission, the responsible editor will then forward it to the series editors for discussion and approval.

Please feel free to forward this information to your colleagues who may be interested in publishing a monograph in this series.