Editorial pubs.acs.org/IECR
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research: Looking Back
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mailed directly to my office at the University of Texas at Austin. My staff took over the duties formerly handled by the Manuscript Office, including sending manuscripts to the assigned Associate Editors by mail. Gradually, computer and Internet technology began to change how we did things, with a corresponding increase in speed of processing once the physical mailing of communication back and forth was eliminated. Eventually, we arrived at the place where we are today, i.e., manuscripts are submitted via the Internet and all communications are done by e-mail. In Columbus, manuscripts are now converted to the formatted article using the submitted digital files with a greatly reduced level of human effort and much higher accuracy and speed. We still have a print version of the journal that is mailed, but most readers access our content via the Internet and the distribution to readers has grown enormously around the world. Simultaneous, with the technology revolution mentioned above, globalization was also occurring, and a pivotal issue was the opening up of China and the tremendous increase in the research done in that country. Because of the growth of research in Asia, and China especially, and the fact that manuscripts could be submitted online, at no cost or delay by the mail, manuscript submission began to rise rapidly, and the journal was no longer dominated by submissions from North America and Europe. Our current team of Associate Editors and our Editorial Advisory Board reflects this global reach. As a result of this growth, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research is now published weekly. To get a sense of this growth, I point to the fact that in 1989, after working off the backlog from the Quarterlies, the journal published 1922 pages. With this issue, we close out 2013 with a total of ∼19100 pages published this year. Thus, the activity associated with the journal has increased by roughly an order of magnitude, because of globalization, technology, and the good reputation and wide distribution of ACS journals. In addition to the change in the volume of what we publish, the nature of what we publish also has changed enormously. In the beginning, we primarily published papers about traditional areas of chemical engineering such as reaction engineering, separations, thermodynamics, unit operations, transport phenomena, and process design and control, to mention a few. While we still publish papers in these areas, we have also seen an enormous growth and interest in materials, interfacial phenomena, nanotechnology, applied chemistry and papers with a biological orientation. The future is likely to see further growth in the interconnecting issues of energy, water, and the environment. I have been especially proud of our Special Issue strategy, which was intended to attract top-quality papers and authors who might not ordinarily think to publish in our journal. Over the years, we have initiated approximately 75 Special Issues honoring well-known people in our field, or Festschrifts, and more than 35 devoted to symposia or topical areas. Most of
y term as Editor-in-Chief ends December 31, 2013, so this is the last issue under my editorship. Effective January 1, 2014, Professor Phillip E. Savage of the University of Michigan will take over as Editor-in-Chief. I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on some of the history of this journal, the many changes that have occurred during my watch, and thank a number of people who have been of great help during this time. In 1909, the American Chemical Society launched its second journal, under the title Journal of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry. Along the way, a number of current ACS journals were spun off from this journal, and then in 1962, the journal was divided into three Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Quarterlies, under the subtitles “Fundamentals,” “Process Design & Development,” and “Product Research & Development.” It was decided in 1986 to remerge these three Quarterlies into one monthly publication under the title we currently carry: Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. I was appointed Editor-in-Chief of this new journal in late 1986, and the first issue of this new format was published in January 1987. In addition to adapting to this new format, we had to work off a large backlog of manuscripts submitted to the Quarterlies. A major goal was to decrease the time to publication, which in 1986 was as much as two years. Now, the typical time from manuscript submission to publication on the web is 4 to 5 months and still decreasing. In 2008, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the journal and much of its history is recorded in an Editorial that appeared in Issue 7 of Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. [Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2007, 46 (7), 1859− 1860]. The time since 1987 has been a period of incredible change for this journal and others, because of technology and globalization, and, in the following, I would like to remind the readers of some of these changes. When I began as Editor-in-Chief, authors mailed multiple hardcopies of their manuscripts to a Manuscript Office in Washington, DC, and that office handled many of the peer review tasks for a number of ACS journals. The staff of the Manuscript Office and I communicated about the assignment of manuscripts to Associate Editors and the selection of reviewers. When a sufficient number of reviews had been collected, they were sent by mail to the Editor handling the manuscript, who made a decision with regard to rejection or revision. This decision was then communicated back to the Manuscript Office, and they, in turn, communicated that decision to the author by mail. Once a manuscript was finally accepted, it was forwarded by mail to our Production Office in Columbus, OH; that office performed the copyediting, rekeyed the entire text of the manuscript, and formatted the article, along with appropriate placement of figures and tables. A galley proof was returned by mail to the authors, who marked it up and returned it to the Production Office. Eventually, a hard copy of the final issue was mailed to libraries and individual subscribers. The Manuscript Office in Washington, DC was closed at the end of 1995, and from that point forward, all manuscripts were © 2013 American Chemical Society
Published: December 26, 2013 18121
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie403658e | Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2013, 52, 18121−18122
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
Editorial
Notes
these have been handled directly from my office. I am handing over the Special Issues currently in progress to Phil Savage. There are many people who have helped make all of this possible, some of whom I will mention by name. First, is the group of Associate Editors who have helped administer peer review for the majority of the 37 500 manuscripts that have crossed my desk over the last 27+ years. The original editorial team included: Jerome A. Seiner, former Editor of the quarterly, “Product Research and Development,” who stayed with the new journal until his untimely death in 1998; J. D. (Bob) Seader, who was an Associate Editor until his retirement in 1999; John L. Anderson, who was part of the team as he moved through many administrative jobs but finally resigned in 2007 when he assumed the Presidency of the Illinois Institute of Technology; and David T. Allen, who joined the team in 1998 and continued until 2012, when he was named Editor-in-Chief of the new ACS journal, ACS Sustainable Chemistry in Engineering. Currently, there are nine Associate Editors, listed here in the order of their appointment: Milorad P. Dudukovic (1991), Spiro D. Alexandratos (1996), Lorenz T. Biegler (1999), Babatunde A. Ogunnaike (1999), Massimo Morbidelli (2006), Benny D. Freeman (2007), Bo Geng Li (2011), Jim Yang Lee (2012), and Phillip Savage (2012). Also, in 2012, Dr. David Smith, a full-time ACS employee, joined the team as Managing Editor to assist with the growing duties not handled by Associate Editors. I would like to thank all of these individuals for their dedicated service to the journal and I wish them well. I also must thank the many folks who have served on our Editorial Advisory Board and offered invaluable encouragement and advice along the way. Unlike many journals, we have followed the pattern of the American Chemical Society by appointing Board members to fixed terms of three years, and during my term as Editor, 205 people have served in this role. I am especially indebted to my staff at the University of Texas, whose help and friendship has made this job a pleasure. Jody Castano joined my staff in 1995 when the Manuscript Office was closed. She has been the face of the journal to almost all authors and many reviewers during this time, since each submitted manuscript was first seen by her. Susan Chapman joined in 2000 and has helped produce Special Issues and performed administrative duties associated with running the journal. They are both retiring now and wanted to do so sooner; however, I prevailed upon them to help me to the end. Thank you! The professionals at the American Chemical Society’s Division of Publications have been a source of great help and encouragement, but there are too many of them to mention by name. Of course, I have thoroughly enjoyed my interactions with authors and reviewers. Finally, I want to wish Phil Savage well as he takes the helm of this journal and carries it to the next level. As I look back, it is hard for me to imagine what changes might come in these future years that could match what technology and globalization have done during my term.
Views expressed in this Editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
Donald R. Paul,* Editor
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Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-0231, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*Tel.: 512 471 5392. Fax: 512 471 0542. E-mail: drp@che. utexas.edu. 18122
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie403658e | Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2013, 52, 18121−18122
