Dear Isotopists,
First of all, a peaceful and prosperous 1997 to all of you!
As you might remember, I asked, roughly a month ago, the question
whether or not you would think that our community needs a journal
dedicated to publishing stable isotope research.
The answers ranged from "jolly good idea" to "oh no, not another
journal". Overall, this opinion poll resulted in a strong maybe, i.e.
50% of the entries were all for and the other 50% totally against it
- not counting two entries that promoted an alternative.
Even most of the positive answers raised the same considerations, if
not to say reservations, as did the negative replies. One key issue
was the price of a new journal that would add to current subscription
costs. It was pointed out that library subscription have increased
over 28% last year, only to keep up the current number of
subscriptions. Another point was subject coverage and distribution/
circulation of such a new journal. But the same people who made this
point also agreed that solution to this problem would largely depend
on us, i.e. quality of submissions and of peer review and promotion
(leading to subscriptions) of the journal within our community.
Three suggestions were made addressing the aforementioned problems.
(1) One should win the support of a society (which?, even the
proposer admitted he could not name one right now) to run such a
journal in order to reduce costs by cutting out the middle-man. (2)
One should establish a bibliography web page that collates and
updates IRMS articles which could be accessed via the ISOGEOCHEM
website. (3) Two respondants (the two mentioned earlier on) suggested
to support the already existing journal "Isotopes in Environmental
and Health Studies". As pointed out in my enquiry of 5 December, this
journal unfortunately does not enjoy a wide circulation (there are
people who do not evenknow of this journal existence!) but is is
certainly true that the same bona fide support a new journal would
require can be put to better use when aimed at an already existing
journal. So, it is up to us, the potential contributors, reviewers
and subscribers to make this journal THE journal for the stable
isotope community. If some of you think that the current title seems
to exclude their line of work, why not get in touch with the editor?
This would not be the first journal that changed its name to
accommodate changing scopes and demands.
The address is: Prof. Dr. P. Krumbiegel, Editor, UFZ-Evironmental
Research Centre, Permoserstr. 15, D-04318 Leipzig, Germany.
By the by, the subcription rate in 1995 was $127 per volume.
And this would be a the end of it, wouldn't it be for two further
private communications I received in conjunction with my enquiry
accusing me of infamy and profile neurosis. Since I cannot know if
these hard feelings are shared by others, albeit silently, I would
like to make the following statements. (1) The query I raised was
ment as such. However, I was rather hoping that it would generate
enough interest to prompt some isotope heavyweights (no pun intented)
into action since I wouldn't even think of putting myself in the
shoes of a chief-editor. Another hope was that one of the existing
journals dealing with mass spectrometry and analytical chemistry
might contemplate creating an IRMS subsection. (2) I would like to
apologize for any distress my query or the way it was phrased might
have caused, however unintentional.
I am afraid, this turned out to be rather a lengthy message. Thank
you for bearing with me.
All the best,
Wolfram
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Dr. W. Meier-Augenstein
Hon. Lecturer in Chemistry
University of Dundee, Dept. of Anatomy & Physiology,
Small's Wynd, DUNDEE DD1 4HN, United Kingdom
Tel.: +44-(0)1382-34/5124, /4968
+44-(0)468 -314563
Fax: +44-(0)1382-34/5514
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/AnatPhys/wolfram.htm
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