The twelfth volume of the European Journal of Mineralogy will be published during the year 2000. For those who are interested in the magic of numbers, it should be noticed that the 1000th article of the journal was published in the previous issue. This shows that the journal has come a long way since its first steps, in spite of some ambushes and difficulties, which have been overcome. The constant policy, since the creation of the journal, to give it the highest possible quality, has resulted in an internationally acknowledged level as gauged by the “journal impact factor” published by the ISI. This factor has been higher than 1.0 since the starting point of the journal, and it increased to 1.29 for the last year. This is the result of the ceaseless efforts of the Editorial Board, and particularly of the chief editors: Ernst A.J. Burke, Christian Chopin, Walter V. Maresch, and Luciano Ungaretti. The latter two are now leaving the board at their own request, and they will be smoothly replaced by respectively Rainer Altherr, nominated by the DMG, and Annibale Mottana, nominated by the SIMP. The leaving chief editors are thanked for their invaluable contributions to the success of the journal, through their handling of the manuscripts as well as through their involvement in the decisions of the Managing Committee. We are confident that the excellent scientific reputations of the new Chief Editors will enable them to continue the work of their predecessors.
The board of Associate Editors also has experienced some changes. Mihalý Pósfai, Ulrich Kramm, Giacomo Chiari and Patrick Cordier are the newcomers, joining the present panel consisting of T. Andersen, R.J. Angel, L.P. Baumgartner, U. Bismayer, D.A. Carswell, J. Dubessy, M.L. Frezzotti, M. Göbbels, F. Guyot, U. Hålenius, U. Kramm, P. Lattanzi, D. Lattard, E. Libowitzky, H. Palme, R. Petrini, S. Poli, R. Rinaldi, P. Schreiter, C. Stanley and E. Tillmanns. The specific expertise of several members of this board is a clear invitation to authors to submit manuscripts in the fields of cultural heritage, archeometry, and industrial mineralogy.
A balanced budget is a necessary prerequisite for maintaining a regular publication. This was obtained, once again, during the past year, thanks to the financial support of the French “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique”.
Michèle Canaple, the Editorial Secretary of the journal, is acknowledged for her meticulous work on the manuscripts.
Thanks to Ernst Burke fast information on the European Journal of Mineralogy may be obtained on our web site (http://www.geo.vu.nl/users/eurjmin/index.htm); starting with Volume 11, Nr. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1999), the service to our readers has been increased by providing PDF files with the abstracts of papers in forthcoming issues and with author and key-word indexes of the past volumes.
