The year 2007 has witnessed many changes for the European Journal of Mineralogy. With the retirement of Michèle Canaple, the EJM founding editorial secretary who was supported by the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), the entire production process had to be reorganized, a process involving many thorough discussions between the owner Societies (DMG, SEM, SFMC and SIMP) and our Publisher, Schweizerbart. As a result, we now have a new printer and a new type-setter, specialized in electronic scientific literature, who have ensured such a smooth transition that it may have remained unnoticed by most readers. Nonetheless, authors will certainly have perceived the change, because they now receive electronic proofs and see their paper posted as a ‘fast-track article’ on the EJM Ingenta website (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/schweiz/ejm) as soon as their corrections are implemented, without waiting for the pagination of the issue. In this way, their paper is citable through its final DOI one to two months ahead of the print publication.
The other event of the year, in April, was the launching of EJM on the GeoScienceWorld website (http://eurjmin.geoscienceworld.org/). In addition to the political significance of joining this common publishing venture of learned Societies in the Earth Sciences, there are many linked benefits, both for the journal and the readers: EJM will gain a higher exposure to non-European readership; the entire content since its foundation in 1989 are now available online and searchable on the GSW website; supplementary data can be linked to published articles and are freely accessible online, just as are the abstracts, editorials, obituaries and IMA reports.
In spite of these transition periods, and thanks to the devoted work of the editorial board and to the implemented new production route, the articles in volume 19 of EJM appeared in print 11 months after submission on average (the longest delay often being the time taken by the authors for revision). This represents a decisive, 3-month improvement with respect to the 2006 average and is a clear signal to authors that something is really changing in EJM. Combined with an ISI impact factor stable above 1.2 during the past years, this improved efficiency should make EJM an attractive vehicle for timely publication of important results.
The editorial board saw only a few changes during the above period: we welcome Luca Bindi and his crystallographic skills as new associate editor, and thank Jean Dubessy after a very long term indeed, more than a decade of service unselfishly offered to the journal and the authors. We extend our thanks to the whole editorial board, chief editors and associate editors, for their achievement, to the many colleagues who acted as referees and helped to maintain the high standards of the journal (their names are listed in [Eur. J. Mineral.,19, 905]), and to the CNRS for continued support.
Previewing 2008, we note that issue No. 3 will be a special one, devoted to occurrence, genesis and properties of diamond; later in the year an issue will be dedicated to the memory of Werner Schreyer, following on a topical session at the Goldschmidt Conference in Cologne, August 2007, obviously with strong emphasis on metamorphic and experimental petrology; two thematic sets of papers are also scheduled, one on granitic pegmatites following a European meeting held in Porto, June 2007, and one covering the 6th European Conference on Mineralogy and Spectroscopy held in Stockholm, September 2007. Good reading!
