Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2007, 46, 1859-1860
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EDITORIAL 100 Years of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry This journal has a long and rich history of providing quality technical content in the areas of chemical engineering and applied chemistry. The journal is approaching 100 years old, and this deserves a celebration. Here is a quick summary of the history of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (abbreviated hereafter as I&EC Research). The first issue of The Journal of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry was published in January 1909 under the Editorship of W. D. Richardson. It was the second journal started by the American Chemical Society; the first was the Journal of the American Chemical Society (or JACS), which was started in 1879. In 1923, the title was shortened to Industrial & Engineering Chemistry. In that same year, the I&EC News edition was started and then spun off in 1943 to form the current publication Chemical & Engineering News. In 1929, the analytical edition was started, and it also was spun off in 1949 to create the current journal Analytical Chemistry. In 1956, the Chemistry & Engineering Data series was initiated; and, in 1959, the current Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data was launched as a stand-alone publication. In 1962, the journal was split into the three I&EC quarterlies: Fundamentals (its first and only Editor was Robert L. Pigford), Process Design and DeVelopment (its first and only Editor was Hugh M. Hulburt), and Product Research and DeVelopment (its first Editor was Byron M. Vanderbilt, its second Editor was Howard L. Gerhart, and its third Editor was Jerome A. Seiner). In 1987, the three quarterlies were collapsed into a single monthly publication under the title Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (or I&EC Research) (Editor, Donald R. Paul; Senior Editor, J. A. Seiner; Associate Editors, J. L. Anderson and J. D. Seader). In the early years of I&EC Research and its predecessors, manuscripts were sent to a Manuscript Office at ACS Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where staff handled the mechanics of manuscript processing, as was the case for other so-called “applied” journals, including EnVironmental Science & Technology, Journal of Chemical Engineering Data, and Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. This office was gradually phased out and eventually closed at the end of 1995, and its staff functions were transferred to the offices of the various editors. This increased the speed of publication and gave authors and reviewers more direct contact with the editors. In 2001, I&EC Research went to biweekly publication, because of tremendous growth in the number of manuscripts being published: In 1987, the total number of pages published in I&EC Research was 2579, whereas in 2006, that number was 10 072. This growth made it necessary to expand the number of Associate Editors; that list now includes Spiro Alexandratos, David Allen, John Anderson, Larry Biegler, Mike Dudukovic, Massimo Morbidelli (the first outside the United States), and Tunde Ogunnaike. In 1997, the web edition of this journal was initiated, whereas in 2003, online submission of manuscripts was made possible; all of these milestones greatly shortened the time to publication. The American Chemical Society (ACS) scanned all the journal pages published prior to the online electronic version and made the ACS Journal Archives available
in 2002. In 1996, we introduced a new category for papers on “Applied Chemistry”, which has attracted many papers that previously would not have been submitted to I&EC Research. For many years, I&EC Research has had the practice of publishing collections of invited papers in a designated area, from selected symposia or to pay tribute to important people in the field on some significant occasion. A listing of these “special issues” dating back to the year 2000 can be found at http:// pubs.acs.org/journals/iecred/promo/special_issues/. We are taking several steps to celebrate and document this history and the development of the current version of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry over the past 100 years. We have launched a website that will be the focal point of the 100-year anniversary; the content of this website (http://pubs.acs.org/journals/iecred/ promo/100th) will be preserved for posterity in some way. Among other things, we will highlight several papers published over the last 100 years that have had special impact on our field and there will be a link to these papers, so that all visitors to this website can have access to them. Second, this website will feature short essays by friends of the journal, reflecting on the past or looking forward to the future. This will be analogous to what was done at year 50; see Ind. Eng. Chem. 1958, 50 (1), pp 2-4, to read some interesting commentaries and predictions (available at the website: http://pubs.acs.org/about.html, if your library has a subscription). Finally, in the lead-up to and during 2009, we will publish, in the journal, several special scholarly paperssgenerally, review paperssto commemorate our 100year anniversary. As mentioned, we are interested in posting on the Anniversary website those papers published in some version of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry that have had noteworthy impact. This list will be compiled in various ways, using citation and download statistics, as well as papers authored by Chemical & Engineering News’s top 75 chemists and the AIChE’s 30 Eminent Chemical Engineers. We recently invited current and former Editorial Advisory Board members to nominate papers they feel should be listed. At this time, we ask our readers to visit the website and tell us about other papers they believe should be added to this list. In addition, we invite our readers to submit short essays about the past or the future of chemical engineering and applied chemistry and especially as it relates to I&EC Research. Reflections on how the journal has impacted the profession broadly or discussions of topics that we should focus on in the future would be appropriate. Some combination of past and future would also be welcome. We envision these essays to be less than a typewritten page in length. We will post all essays that are deemed appropriate. We also invite our readers to suggest topics and authors for scholarly papers (typically reviews) that would be especially timely for us to publish during the 2008-2009 time frame. The editorial team will review these suggestions and, for those deemed appropriate, invitations will be issued to authors to submit contributions that help celebrate our 100-year anniversary. Suggestions or comments can be sent via E-mail to
[email protected].
10.1021/ie070226b CCC: $37.00 © 2007 American Chemical Society Published on Web 02/23/2007
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Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 46, No. 7, 2007
It is significant to mention that, within the same time frame, the Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (see http://membership.acs.org/I/ IEC/) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers will
also celebrate their 100-year anniversaries. We offer our congratulations to these organizations and hope to find ways to celebrate together this important time for chemical engineering and applied chemistry.
Donald R. Paul, Editor Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research IE070226B
