Electronic publishing pace accelerates

Members of the IUCr Commission on Journals convened meetings at ECM 2000 in Nancy and at the ACA meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. Matters discussed and actions recommended included the following:

• Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online will provide for rapid publication of small-molecule and inorganic crystal structures beginning in January 2001. Bill Clegg and David Watson are Editors. The Acta E home page is at http://journals.iucr.org/e/journalhomepage.html.
• Manuscripts submitted to Acta D for the CCP4 Proceedings were used as a pilot study of electronic review. The lessons learnt will be applied initially to Acta E, which will require web submission of papers. Pilot electronic submission and review procedures will also be introduced for other journals during 2001.
• Crystallization papers in Acta D were discussed and considered well suited to electronic-only publication, with 2002 as a possible start date.
• Improved linking of Crystallography Journals Online was discussed. The IUCr will become a member of the CrossRef linking service.
• The digitization of all back issues of the journals is underway. Over 50,000 articles (170,000 pages) are to be scanned and converted to PDF pages. A sample issue (Acta Crystallographica Volume 15, Part 3) is now available from Crystallography Journals Online at http://journals.iucr.org.
• Free printed reprints were replaced by electronic reprints at the start of 2000.
• A document on archiving policy is being developed in conjunction with the IUCr Electronic Publishing Committee.
• A lighter grade of paper has been selected for printing.