 n
a recent analysis for in-cites, the journal New
Astronomy showed the highest percent increase in total
citations in the field of Space Science. According to the ISI
Essential
Science Indicators
Web product, New
Astronomy
has 293 papers cited a total of 2,168 times to
date. In the interview below, Professor Gerry Gilmore, one of New
Astronomy’s
17 editors, talks about the journal’s
success.
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Did you expect New
Astronomy to become highly cited, or is this surprising to you?
I am not surprised. The policy of New Astronomy from the
beginning has been to aim for excellence, and to provide a service
which other journals do not. The editors clearly believed there was a
demand for these services, or we would not have become involved.
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 Journals
are no longer the end of the research process,
they are integrated inside it. New Astronomy was
one of the first significant steps along that
path away from paper.
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From the outset we were anticipating a high rejection rate, 50% or
so. Within astronomy there was some complacency; the established
journals were afraid to rock the boat and were looking at rejection
rates of less than 10%—and delivering very slow service to authors.
Perhaps more importantly, there was no realistic way to publish
numerical simulation results, or large imaging results. The clear need
to have access to such results is apparent in the citations. From the
very first issues, we received movies, etc.—New Astronomy
offered the possibility of publishing material that could not be
published before. (see http://www.elsevier.com/gej-ng/10/33/29/doc/multimed.htt)
How would you account for the
increased citation rate of New Astronomy?
Partly, of course, it is simply time: as the community becomes more
aware, things get noticed. Partly it is quality. When New Astronomy
was started, the founding chief editor, the late Dave Schramm, made
clear it should publish the very best and most influential papers. We
have paid very close attention to getting the best referees and
getting the best reports in the shortest possible time. Of course,
this is not always easy and requires a lot of effort from the editors.
However, it seems that it is paying off. The journal is growing faster
than we originally expected, and we have attracted some of the leaders
in the fields which can benefit most from true electronic publishing.
What sort of impact does being a fully electronic journal have
on the publication process? On the attention the journal receives?
New Astronomy was the first real electronic journal in
astronomy. Even now the other major journals are just tip-toeing round
the edges of what new technologies can offer. Many of the most
substantial new features, such as hypertext links to the databases
relevant for astronomers, SIMBAD and ADS, made the journal fully
linked into the scientific community. They are such good ideas that
now other journals do it too. But it was such a novel idea at the time
that it was featured in a number of popular science articles in
newspapers. In a way New Astronomy is more a research tool than
"just" a collection of articles. The visibility through
SIMBAD and ADS of course created immediate awareness of the journal,
and raised its impact.
What historical factors have contributed to the success of New
Astronomy?
These days electronic publishing is embedded in all the scientific
literature. I am certain this is the future of research publishing.
One sees the same thing developing in all of research, with
initiatives such as the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory linking the
world’s databases and software analysis tools and publishing
archives. Journals are no longer the end of the research process, they
are integrated inside it. New Astronomy was one of the first
significant steps along that path away from paper.
The community was looking for new ways of publishing. The Internet
gives scientists new possibilities. Elsevier and some of the
scientific leaders in the field understood the changed needs of the
scientists. It could therefore combine high scientific standards with
technological innovative publishing possibilities.
Additionally, some of the big established journals had become lazy,
with poor service to authors. People were tired of unnecessarily slow
service and high page charges.
Have there been specific developments in the fields served by New
Astronomy that may have contributed?
Another factor was the dramatic success of electronic preprint
serving (see http://arXiv.org/).
This completely changed the way astronomers access the literature.
People simply do not read paper anymore. But the need for refereeing
to assure quality, and the need for archive references, and the need
to access very large files is not met by arXiv. So a real online
journal was the natural complement.
The daily need to access quality-assured very large files is
perhaps the most important change. Another factor has been the rapid
growth of numerical simulations, and especially in gravitational
computational simulations, where New Astronomy has become a
major player.
What, in your view, is this journal's main significance or
contribution in the field of Space Science?
New Astronomy really did lead the way into the Internet age for
all journals, the rest of which are still chasing to catch up.
How do you see your fields evolving in the next few years?
There is a VERY long way to go for all publishing to really come to
terms with what the Internet and Grid can deliver. Publishing in a
decade or two will be as different from what we see today as today is
compared to a decade ago, when one posted off typescripts.
Astronomy is becoming more and more dominated by huge datasets, and
research based on multiple archives and data sources. They simply
cannot be described and accessed in a few pages of paper.
What role do you see for your journal?
I hope it can continue to provide high-quality refereeing with
rapid service, which is what authors want. I hope it can continue to
be at the forefront of technological innovation, which is what
astronomy needs to progress. I hope it can continue to force some
competition into the market, to force raised standards on all
journals. I hope it can continue to be free to authors, so scientists
in the less well-funded societies can publish their (perhaps
Internet-based) research in a quality place.
New Astronomy
Professor Gerry Gilmore, editor (one of 17)
Elsevier Science, publishers
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cites
