Copyright 2008 American Chemical Society
JANUARY 6, 2008 VOLUME 25, NUMBER 1
Editorial Langmuir 25th Anniversary Langmuir is celebrating its 25th anniversary. In many respects, Langmuir is a different journal today from the 193-page volume 1 issue 1 that appeared in January of 1985. However, when one reads the first (January 1985) and final (January 1990) editorials of Founding Editor-in-Chief Arthur W. Adamson, there are intriguing comments about why there should be a “broad scope” of topical coverage in a small journal. In the first editorial, Art states that the broad scope is most fitting for a journal bearing the name of Irving Langmuir. As Langmuir was a person always looking toward the future and new scientific opportunities, we continue to ask, “What would Irving do?” Today Langmuir is a much larger journal, and yet some of the concerns of “what falls within the scope of Langmuir” remain. The journal covers topics that did not exist in 1985, yet many of the areas central to the early issues of Langmuir not only remain healthy but some have experienced a rebirth. During this 25th anniversary year, we will be celebrating by exploring the developments and changes that have occurred in the areas covered by the journal and the individuals involved in these developments. This will occur in part in Langmuir through feature articles, special issues, and perspectives. It will be augmented by a special website for the 25th anniversary (http://pubs.acs.org/page/langd5/anniversary/25/index.html), which will include information about Langmuir and Irving Langmuir. We will have three special issues in 2009. The first two are topical special issues: one on neutron reflectivity, edited by Bob Rowell, and the other on gels and fibrillar networks, edited by Dick Weiss. The third special issue, which will be the final volume of 2009, will focus on developments during the last 25 years in five topics of historical and ongoing importance to Langmuir. The organization of this special issue has been spearheaded by Francoise Winnik, Dan Schwartz, and Luis Liz-Marzan. However, the editing will involve a team of at least 10 editors, and we believe that the resulting special issue will be of great interest and high scientific value. The past 3 years have seen remarkable changes in ACS Publications and in Langmuir. The remainder of this editorial will focus on some of these changes specific to Langmuir. The journal has continued to grow both in submissions and in the number of papers and pages published. Since my January 2006 editorial (“More Changes”), there have been several new Senior Editors joining us. These include Maria Santore, Tetsuro Majima, Vaidhyanathan Ramamurthy, Xi Zhang, Bruce Armitage, and with the start of 2009, Luis Liz-Marzan. Maria has a feature article in this first issue that covers some exciting developments wherein the highly selective adhesion of particles can be obtained by tuning interfacial valency. We now have 14 editorial offices in 5 countries. The new Editors bring a wealth of expertise and experience to Langmuir. Francoise Winnik has agreed to take on additional responsibilities for managing Langmuir activities and has assumed the new position of Executive Editor. Two Senior Editors have left our ranks in the last year. Josef Holzwarth has left Langmuir as Senior Editor but has joined our Editorial Advisory Board. Josef has been a distinguished Editor, and we thank him for more than a decade of excellent service. Kirk Schanze left Langmuir during this past year as he became the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the new journal ACS Applied 10.1021/la804110t CCC: $40.75 2009 American Chemical Society Published on Web 12/30/2008
2 Langmuir, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2009
Editorials
Materials and Interfaces. This journal, which launches this month, will focus on applications. We thank Kirk for his service to Langmuir and wish him great success with ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. We are pleased that Kirk is now on the Langmuir Editorial Advisory Board. We look forward to working with ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces and other ACS journals in physical chemistry and materials science to highlight papers in one journal that may be of interest to the readership of another. We invite our authors, reviewers, and readers to join us as Langmuir celebrates its 25th anniversary. David G. Whitten
Editor-in-Chief LA804110T
