EDITORIAL
ANNUAL REPORT 1971
New appointments to the J C D Advisory Board are: Dr. Russell J. Rowlett, Jr., Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio, for 1972-4, inclusive. Mr. Bruno M . Vasta, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, for 1972-4, inclusive. Dr. James E. Rush, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, for 1972-4, inclusive. Dr. Anthony E. Petrarca, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, for 1972. Dr. Rush‘s appointment to the Advisory Board is by virtue of his election to the office of Chairman-Elect of the Division of Chemical Literature. Dr. Petrarca’s appointment is concomitant with his chairmanship of the Division of Chemical Literature’s Program Committee. Retiring members of the Advisory Board, to whom I express my sincere appreciation, are: Dr. F. K. Broome (past chairman) Dr. E . H. Immergut Mr. C. E . Granito (past program chairman) Table I is a summary of the papers received, processed, and published in 1971 and 197a Rejected in Table I includes papers t h a t were withdrawn by authors for several reasons, including t h a t of being more suitable for another journal in the opinion of reviewers and t h a t of authors not being willing or able t o revise papers as recommended by reviewers, as well as those that were reTable I.
Papers Processed, 1971 and 1 9 7 0 19il
Received At Printers, January 1 In Process, January 1 Published At Printers, December 31 In Process, December 31 Rejected
19iO
112 8 17
116 20 22 59 8 34 57 __
61 11 19
46 ~- -
137
Totals Table 11.
Employment Industry University Government Others Nation United States Canada England Germany Japan Finland Romania
137
158
158
Employment of Authors and Origin of Papers Published, 197 1 Papers, No.
Authon, S o .
26
59 27 22 18
15 11
9
53 3
109
2
2 1 9
1 2
3
1
1
jected by reviewers. Of the 46 papers in the rejected category, about one-half were rejected, six were published in other journals suggested by reviewers, and 15 were not returned by authors with recommended revisions. Reviewers, with a few exceptions, were gratifyingly prompt, returning papers within a month. Authors, on the other hand, have been frustratingly slow in revising papers as recommended by reviewers. Over 50 different reviewers were used during 1971, of whom about 25 have served this Journal in previous years, including most members of the current and past Advisory Boards. The value of the members of the Advisory Board is in their critical assessment of the contents of the Journal, issue after issue, in terms of quality and relevancy t o the art and science of chemical documentation. I keep in close communication with members of the Advisory Board by means of letters and by meeting with them as a group a t least once a year during a national ACS meeting. I have found this interaction to be quite profitable, and, in many cases, to continue many years beyond the three-year appointment. Another valuable interaction has been with the Executive and Program Committees of the Division of Chemical-Literature. Of the 61 papers published in 1971, 30 had been presented before the Division of Chemical Literature: four a t the Toronto-1970 and 12 a t the Chicago-1970 meetings; 10 a t the Los Angeles-1971 and four a t the Washington, D. C.-1971 meetings. I a m particularly happy to report t h a t my efforts in encouraging Chemical Literature Sessions at ACS Regional Meetings have been successful, with programs a t the Middle Atlantic (Baltimore), Central (Cincinnati), and Northeast (Buffalo) Regional Meetings during 1971. Of the 61 papers published in 1971, 11 had been presented a t ACS Regional Meetings: 10 a t the Middle Atlantic ( 5 in 1970 and 5 in 1971) and one at the Central, 1971, meeting. Nineteen papers published were without a prior presentation. The 61 papers published had 126 authors, a n average of 2.1 authors per paper: 28 papers had a single author, 19 had two authors, seven had three, and seven papers had four or more (one had eight authors). As shown in Table 11, papers from industry continue to dominate chemical documentation, with 26 papers by 59 authors; there were 15 paperz by 27 authors from the academic community and 11 papers by 22 authors from a governmental agency. ACS employees accounted for five papers: four from the Washington, D. C., office and one from Chemical Abstracts Service. Eight papers originated from outside of the United States: three from Canada, two from England, two from Japan, and one from Germany. This is a new high, a trend which I hope continues. In view of the many governmental research grants, it is surprising that only six of the 61 papers had been supported by this funding: two-U.S. Army; two-NSF; one-YIH; and one-AF. In my Annual Report-1970, I announced that I would be willing to put out a ten-year subject and author index if the need were real as evidenced by communication from the subscribers. I was overwhelmed by the complete absence of any response, and accordingly no cumulative subject and author indexes will be prepared. HERMAK SKOLNIK
2
Journal of Chemical Documentation, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1972
