Report of the Editor
The ten months since we met in Seoul have been particularly busy for your Editor
. In August, I was told by Sue Deeley, our Managing Editor at Butterworth
Scientific, that the joint parent company Reed-E1sevier had decided to move the
Butterworth-Heinemann Journals three miles up the road in Oxford to Elsevier
Scientific Limited. Many of those working of Dentomaxillofacial Radiology had left
by the time of the move in October, and Sue Deeley herself has moved to a
different job within the company. We now have a new Editorial team and the
day-to-day responsibility for the Journal rests with Mandy Sketch, Assistant
Publishing Executive. She will be coming to the ECDMFR in Cologne in October,
when I hope many of you will have the opportunity to meet her. Those of you who
attended the AADR in San Antonio in March will have noticed one benefit of the move.
DMFR was one of the four dental journals, the others are Journal of Dentistry, Archives of
Oral Biology and Oral Oncology, featured at the Elsevier stand. In addition, Elsevier
publish a number of imaging journals and I hope that we will benefit from the
wider marketing opportunity the new arrangements should offer.
The decision taken in Seoul to expand to five issues in l996, and six in 1997,
will go ahead as intended, accompanied by a modest increase in the number of
pages, The expansion will be more than welcome since I have an embarrassing
backlog of papers waiting to be published. In the past, I have endeavoured to ensure
that the interval between acceptance and publication is a minimum of three
and a maximum of six months. It is now approaching ten months. The flow of
papers so far this year is well up on that of last year. Despite my efforts to attract
contributions from those in head and neck imaging, the majority are still from those
who would regard themselves oral and maxillofacial radiologists working within
dental institutions, with a particular current bias towards digital imaging .
I watch with concern the pressure on dental research workers to submit to journals
with a high impact factor. DMFR has been indexed by Current Contents since
November1993, but it will be another two years before we appear in the Science
Citation Index and can quote an impact factor. There is no doubt in my mind that
this policy is misguided. Not only does this subvert the original intention of the
Science Citation Index but ultimately it is likely to be self -defeating. High impact
factor journals are not necessarily interested in our field, in particular the technical
aspects. Paul van der Stelt has a similar problem in Holland where has university
insists that staff publish in 'hard-core' journals, defined as those listed in the hard-
copy version of the Index Medicus. DMFR is therefore excluded, although it is
listed on Medline. Nonetheless, he has successfully argued that DMFR is often the
most appropriate journal of publishing in oral and maxillofacial radiology.
Alternative Subscription Rates
The Board of Directors spent some time at Seoul discussing alternative
subscription rates. The initial impetus came from Sue Deeley who felt that there
was a market for a personal, as well as in institutional, rate for those who do not
wish be members of the IADMFR. Subsequently, the AAOMR agreed a similar
arrangement and the Journal is now offered for $64.00 per annum to those members
of the American Academy (are there any?) who would prefer to obtain the Journal
this way. If there are any other national societies who believe they have individual
members who might be interested in receiving the Journal at this rate then please
let me know. While obviously the priority is to increase the membership of the
Association, we also need to ensure the growth in circulation of the Journal.
Second, the Board of Directors received a request from a husband and wife
who are happy with only one copy of the Journal, but would like to benefit from the
reduced Congress fees which one of them working in a different speciality, enjoys
attending. The Board of Directors therefore agreed to a special joint subscription
rate, but this raised the question of whether there might not be others in a similar
situation, or indeed other forms of membership that we ought to consider. A small
working party, consisting of Brent Dove, Douglas Lovelock and myself, was
therefore set up by the Board of Directors, charged with examining this further. If any
member has any suggestions, or proposal please write and tell me so that we can
consider them at the Board meeting in Cologne in November.
Meanwhile, please keep submitting your papers and writing Letters to the Editor.
I would like to continue the present policy of regular editorials and Review Articles
and would therefore welcome suggestions for topics as well as actual contributions.
P. N. Hirschmann
Editor, Dentomaxillofacial Radiology