JOURNAL INTERVIEWS - 2008

In the interview below, Managing Editor Peter Strickland and Section Editors Bill Clegg and David Watson talk about the journal's history and citation achievements.

Did you expect Acta Crystallographica Section E to become highly cited, or is this surprising to you?

Our aim has always been to produce a high-quality journal with short papers and a very rapid publication process. Given the nature of the content—short reports of crystal structures—we would not have expected the journal to become particularly highly cited.

How would you account for the high citation rate of Acta Crystallographica Section E?

We think that two factors may be involved, both related to the move of the journal to open-access publication from the start of 2008. One is the large growth that accompanied a change in article format and handling introduced in early 2007 in preparation for the move to open access, and the other is the move to open access itself, which thereby made the journal completely accessible free of charge to all potential readers.

Would you give us a brief history of the journal?

The journal is published by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). One of the main roles of the Union is to promote international publication of crystallographic research, and it does this principally by publishing journals and books to the highest quality standards.

The journal was launched in 2001 with the main aim of increasing the number of published inorganic and small-molecule crystal structure determinations in the literature. The journal was conceived as an online-only journal to ensure rapid publication. The journal is hosted on the IUCr's own platform, Crystallography Journals Online, which allows each paper to be published with its associated data. It also benefits from the IUCr's unique data checking services. The journal has grown rapidly since 2001, with over 5,000 articles published in 2007. From January 2008, the journal has moved to full open-access publication.

What historical factors have contributed to the success of Acta Crystallographica Section E?

A new generation of X-ray diffractometers that greatly reduced the time taken to determine a crystal structure was introduced in the 1990s. The launch of the journal coincided with an enormous growth in the use of these machines during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The same period has also seen large growth in scientific activity in Asian countries. The journal has captured a large amount of this extra activity.

Have there been specific developments in the fields served by Acta Crystallographica Section E that may have contributed?

The development of the crystallographic information file (CIF), which is used for data exchange in crystallography, has had a significant effect on simplifying the publication procedure.

The journal uses the CIF as a specialized submission format. CIFs are now exported routinely by the standard software used by authors in analyzing the results of their experiments, and, in addition, the journal provides authors with specialized tools to edit the CIFs and prepare them for publication.

What, in your view, is this journal's main significance or contribution in the field of Chemistry?

It provides a record of a significant proportion of new high-quality crystal structure determinations. It has also provided a model for data publication that can be adopted for other fields of Chemistry.

How do you see your field(s) evolving in the next few years?

We would expect continued growth in the number of crystal structure determinations. In addition, we feel Acta Crystallographica Section E has demonstrated how successful an online journal can be, so that we expect the emphasis will continue to shift from paper journals to electronic in the coming years. Also, making original experimental data available through published work is important, and has been a policy of the IUCr for many years; this is bound to grow, e.g., through links to institutional repositories.

What role do you see for your journal?

The IUCr aims to lead with innovations in the publication of structural results; Acta Crystallographica Section E is just one example of this, and further novel developments will follow.

Acta Crystallographica Section E
Bill Clegg and David Watson (Section Editors), and Peter Strickland (Managing Editor)
IUCr Journals, publishers

Keywords: crystal structures, crystallographic research, inorganic crystal structure determinations, small-molecule crystal structure determinations, crystallographic information file (CIF), open-access journal.