Veterinary Microbiology 100 (2004) 1–2

Editorial

Been to the library lately?Veterinary Microbiology hits a century

100 volumes of Veterinary Microbiology

The publication of the 100th volume of Veterinary Mi-crobiology (started in 1976) is an opportunity both tocelebrate its achievements and to look forward into thefuture. Many changes are underway, of which a minorone has been the recent change in format to a larger,double-column, size (as of Volume 98, Number 1).

Veterinary Microbiology (the journal) has for manyyears consistently been among the top five or six ofall veterinary research journals in terms of “impactfactor”, a factor that has also been steadily rising. Thejournal is well respected globally in its area, and hasa strong international flavour, perhaps with a slightlyEuropean accent, although the accent is changing.We value the international scope of the journal whichcontinues to provide useful service for the publishingneeds of scientists worldwide in the area of Veteri-nary Microbiology (having said this, we discouragemanuscripts containing information of only localinterest).

The changing nature of Veterinary Microbiology

We live in extraordinary technological times, with thegenomes of the most important bacterial and viralpathogens of animals now sequenced or being se-quenced. This has or will produce an unprecedentedand indeed overwhelming wealth of data that willtake years to evaluate, even with the new tools ofmicro-arrays and proteomics. The cost and complexityof these technologies will increase collaborations be-tween different research groups, and much of the datawill be stored electronically rather than being pub-

lished in print form. Genome sequencing will becomeincreasingly inexpensive, so that there will be increas-ing numbers of strains within a species sequenced, thusexpanding our understanding of microbial diversity.

These fabulous developments are increasingly re-flected in the journal’s content, and will continue, andwill change how data are presented in or through thejournal.

DNA technology is also increasing our understand-ing of bacteria that are demanding to isolate andcharacterize. For this reason, we have strengthenedBoard membership in the area of obligate intracellu-lar bacterial pathogens, an increasingly large groupof important emerging or previously unrecognizedpathogens. In the face of the antimicrobial-resistancecrisis, and the recognition that acquiring resistancegenes enhances the virulence potential of many bac-terial pathogens, we have also strengthened Boardmembership in this area.

The willingness of scientists to become Boardmembers, or to act as occasional reviewers and tocontribute freely their spare time in reviewing papers,has been an enormous and unsung contribution to thefield of Veterinary Microbiology. We thank everyoneinvolved in this process.

The future of science publishing

The key feature of the emergence of electronic pub-lishing is not speed of access to an article but ratherlinkage to everything ever published anywhere. Forthis reason, most Elsevier journal issues have recentlybeen digitized (back to the first issue of VeterinaryMicrobiology). The major electronic platform for

0378-1135/$ – see front matter © 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.doi:10.1016/j.vetmic.2004.04.002

2 Editorial / Veterinary Microbiology 100 (2004) 1–2

Elsevier is ScienceDirect, in which local library sub-scriptions gives subscribers electronic access to jour-nals, as well as to personal search-alert systems. In-creasingly, with electronic access, the focus becomesnot access to an issue of a particular journal, butrather to articles which can be read online or down-loaded. This may be through PubMed, the NationalLibrary of Medicine search engine which receives amillion enquiries a day. Libraries find that electronicaccess saves them considerable sums in binding,re-shelving, cataloguing, lost journals, and storagecosts. Because of changes in library subscriptions, theaverage academic library now has access to twice asmany Elsevier journals as three years ago. Electronicpublishing allows complex data, even raw data, tobe available to the reader. It also allows multi-mediafiles and colour to be added without charge.

Important also, because of PubMed, and becauseElsevier also make Veterinary Microbiology freeto students and researchers in developing countriesthrough an agreement with the United Nations Foodand Agricultural Organization’s Access to GlobalOnline Research in Agriculture (AGORA) project,access to new scientific developments is availablethroughout the world.

Having increasingly solved the global electronicaccess issue, Elsevier is moving from thinking oflibraries as their customers to thinking of busyuser-scientists and authors as their customers. If anarticle is not readily available online it will likely beignored. When were you last in your library? Sci-enceDirect now downloads two articles per secondevery day to sites around the world. Veterinary Mi-crobiology is increasingly accessed electronically; in2002 there were about 64,000 full text downloads andthis rose to over 139,000 in 2003.

Review process

The basic issues of obtaining high quality papers,getting them reviewed carefully, knowledgeably, andquickly, and producing a high quality published ver-sion in a timely manner will continue to be at the coreof science publishing. We do not think that onlineself-publishing of un-refereed papers will be acceptedby the scientific community. Veterinary Microbiologyrejects about 40–45% of submissions, accepts about40% with moderate or major changes, and accepts

the remaining 15% with minor or few changes. Theseare the reasons we do not believe that science wouldbe well served by abandoning the current system ofreviewing papers, although the review-publicationtime-line can be speeded-up considerably.

The current average time from acceptance to publi-cation is 3 to 4 months, with earlier availability online,and the average time to acceptance is about 12 weeks.However, the entire Veterinary Microbiology submis-sion, reviewing, editing, and publication process willgo online within the next few months, following thelead of other Elsevier journals. This should speed upthe whole reviewing process by cutting out delays inthe mail. It should also allow reviewers to get a copyof the Editor-in-Chief’s decision, and see the otherreviewer’s comments.

Special issues

One of the strengths of Veterinary Microbiology hasbeen the publication of Special Issues devoted toa wide variety of important topics, many of whichhave resulted from important conferences. For peopleworking in these fields, many have become treasuredcollectors’ items. We are always looking for appro-priate high-quality topics for future special issues,whether connected to an important Conference orWorkshop or to be prepared as invited papers. Suchissues help the journal serve its constituency betterand provide a convenient way to publish collectionsof papers coming from such venues.

The next 100 volumes

The increasing recognition that most new humaninfectious agents have been derived from animalsadds further urgency to the need to have a strongbody of well-educated, technologically proficient andwell-supported microbiologists working at a highlevel on pathogens of animals. Veterinary Microbiol-ogy wants to participate in promoting this. We lookforward to participating in, and contributing to, theexciting changes that we envisage occurring over thenext 100 volumes of the journal.

John Prescott(Editor-in-Chief, Bacteriology, 1998–2003)

Wim Gaastra(Editor-in-Chief, Bacteriology)

Marian C. Horzinek(Editor-in-Chief, Virology)