J. Phys. Chem. C 2010, 114, 1
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Editorial for January 2010 Let me extend my best wishes to all JPC authors and reviewers for 2010. It is through all your efforts that we have had another record year, receiving more submissions than in previous years, and in January of this year, JPC will be adding a new member to the family with the inaugural issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. I encourage you to look at our new web page for JPC Letters: http://pubs.acs.org/journal/jpclcd. As noted in my editorial from last July, the letters portion of JPC had grown so rapidly that the time had arrived when JPC authors could benefit from a separate journal with its own impact factor and dedicated editorial staff. I am happy to say that the community has responded enthusiastically to JPC Letters, with a much higher rate of quality letters submissions than we had received previously and a number of excellent Perspective articles that highlight the development of subfields of physical chemistry. I thank the Deputy Editor, Prashant Kamat, as well as the Senior Editors for JPC Letters, Sharon Hammes-Schiffer and Tim Zwier, for the significant work that they have put into making this launch successful. In addition to JPC Letters, there have been several new or improved features in all parts of JPC this year. The redesigned web page, which was initiated in late 2008, continues to get better and better, with significantly enhanced navigation between JPC A, B, C, and Letters, additional features such as the “Related Content” window, better searching capabilities, and updated versions of our popular catalogs of Feature Articles, special issues, and cover art. The JPC Centennial Feature Articles are now complete, and there is a separate entry in the Feature Article catalog where all of these articles can be found. The Centennial Feature Articles provide a nice survey of a broad range of topics in physical chemistry written by scientists who have played a significant role in the Physical Division of the ACS, and I encourage you to take a look at the excellent work highlighted in these articles, as well as in the Feature Articles. We created our first Virtual Issue of JPC in 2009 which you can find at http://pubs.acs.org/ page/jpccck/vi/1. Virtual Issues provide a selection of recently published JPC articles on a focused topic, together with a brief editorial which summarizes the topic and discusses the importance of the articles chosen for the issue. Links to each of the articles are provided, making it easy to click through the important papers in a given subdiscipline over the past two years. Virtual Issues provide an exciting new way to highlight and gather related articles covering specialized topics, and we will add new issues from time to time. An activity that took place “behind the scenes” during 2008 and 2009 was the conversion of manuscript production to an XML-based process. The journal is now reaping the benefits of the new production environment. The overall time between manuscript acceptance and publication has been significantly reduced, and the quality and processing of galley proofs has been greatly improved. In addition, the XML markup has provided new capabilities for the display of information on the journal web pages. We welcomed three new editorial offices in 2009, Greg Scholes, Greg Hartland, and Pavel Jungwirth. These offices are all fully functional and doing very well, making it possible to process an increasing number of manuscripts while maintaining the fast processing times that authors have come to expect from JPC. Prashant Kamat was promoted to the position of Deputy Editor, thus reflecting his expanded editorial duties with JPC Letters. Donna Minton, the Managing Editor, continues to manage JPC A, B, C, and Letters and is involved in cover art, Feature and Review Articles, and special issues. She also played an important role in starting JPC Letters. Davine Henderson, the Coordinating Editor, celebrated her 20th year working for the Journal in 2009. Vivian Alberici, one of the staff members in Evanston, retired at the end of the year after working 5 years for the Journal and 27 years at Northwestern. I thank Davine, Vivian, and our other staff, Jan Goranson, Julie Rossetti, Barbara Sydow, and Vincent Rezaei, for their tireless efforts to efficiently process the growing number of submitted manuscripts. Last but not least, I would like to extend my thanks to all of the JPC Senior Editorial offices, as they continue to facilitate peer review of thousands of manuscripts each year in a timely and thoughtful manner. I am looking forward to a healthy and productive 2010, and I hope that all of you, our authors and reviewers, have a prosperous and successful year!
George C. Schatz Editor-in-Chief 10.1021/jp911609d 2010 American Chemical Society Published on Web 01/07/2010
