JSR Meeting

Present: Ake Kvick (Chair), Lonny Berman, Philip Coppens, Aldo Craievich,
Tony Weight (IUCr staff)


Overview and journal profile

The general view of JSR is that it is a well respected journal, one of the
main places for synchrotron radiation papers and for instrumentation papers
in particular. Over the last few years JSR has concentrated on publishing
special issues on specific topics, selecting about 10 to 15 good papers from
a meeting, workshop or conference, rather than publishing full proceedings
of conferences which are not good for the impact factor of the journal.

It was questioned whether the `including free-electron lasers' logo on the
front of the printed journal was prominent enough or whether a change of
title would be a good idea, for example `Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 
and Free-Electron Lasers'. NIMS was brought up as an example: everyone knows 
it as NIMS-A or NIMS-B but the actual title, and the title that is actually 
printed on the cover of the journal, is Nuclear Instruments and Methods in 
Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and 
Associated Equipment, or Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research 
Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms. However, it was also 
stated that `Journal of Synchrotron Radiation' is our trademark and should be
kept as such, but still the FELs part could be more prominent.

The FEL logo that appears on the front cover of the printed journal in order
to attract papers on FELs and related topics does not appear on our web 
site, nor do FELs appear in the description of the journal on the web. We must 
make FELs more prominent to web-only readers. Interest in FELs is rising 
steeply. We want JSR to become the place to go to read and submit FEL papers. 
We do not want another publisher to feel there is a gap in the market and 
produce, for example, a `Journal of Free Electron Lasers'. 


Editors

The journal's main Editors have now been reduced from three to one with the
retirements of Ake Kvick and Toshiaki Ohta at the Congress. Gene Ice is now
the Editor with Samar Hasnain as Deputy Editor. It was strongly suggested
that JSR needs a European main Editor.

There was a general agreement that some good new Co-editors have recently
come onboard. However, it was suggested that the journal needs a new 
Co-editor from mainland China. Although, unlike with some other journals, JSR 
has not been hit yet, with the Shanghai Synchrotron having been built and 
developments in China moving steadily forward there is likely to be an influx 
of papers from Chinese authors and we need to be ready for them. A Co-editor 
from mainland China would be useful to filter out the good papers. There are 
currently no obvious candidates as yet but Ake Kvick said he would do some 
research and try to find out the names of any possible ones.


Beamlines papers

Everyone agreed that the addition of the new beamlines papers section to the 
journal, introduced at the beginning of the year, was a good thing. These 
papers are important as they give the beamline developers credit for their 
work. They should also generate citations for the journal. One Co-editor said 
that one of his most cited papers is a beamline paper and another wished he 
had published beamlines papers on all the beamlines he had helped set up.
It was mentioned that there should be a special set of instructions for 
referees of beamlines papers so that not too many are rejected; the Co-editor 
should work with the authors to get them accepted. It was suggested that an 
agreement should be made with the beamline scientists and users that the 
users must cite the beamline paper for the beamline that they have used.
Users should be told to cite the paper, as is done with software for 
example. But first we need the papers to be written in order for them to be 
cited. A suggestion was made that the IUCr should send out letters to 
everyone in charge of a beamline inviting them to write a beamline paper for 
their beamline and highlighting the advantages. It was pointed out that there 
are over 300 beamlines worldwide, but then if we send out, for example, 300 
invites we would hopefully get 100 papers. It should then be made a 
requirement that, when writing a paper, the authors must cite the particular 
beamline paper of the beamline used.


Special issues and developing areas of interest

The radiation damage series of special issues (five so far, every two years
since 2002) have been interesting and highly cited and we should try to keep
publishing them in the journal as long as they remain relevant and of current 
interest.

We should also invite special issues on other areas of growth, for example
in areas such as the soil science issue we published recently [March 2010 
issue], or on subjects relating to the environmental sciences and other areas 
that are becoming more important.

Suggestions for new areas for special issues or feature articles included 
the industrial side of synchrotron radiation and, in particular, innovations 
and the incorporation of industry in synchrotron radiation research. 
Small-angle scattering is booming at synchrotron radiation sources and has 
interesting applications in industry. It was agreed that this was an 
interesting and developing area, and it was mentioned that Synchrotron 
Radiation News had recently published an issue focusing on industrial 
research. However, it was also felt that the industrial community do not tend 
to publish so often and that the most interesting applications of industrial 
research are not usually seen. It was concluded that a special issue on 
industrial research would not be highly cited and that it would be ok for 
publications such as Synchrotron Radiation News but not for JSR. It was
suggested that, although it may not be a good thing for JSR, it might be 
good for the Union and it was proposed that the IUCr Commision on Synchrotron 
Radiation discuss the industry aspect of synchrotron radiation.

Other areas of interest for special issues or feature articles mentioned  
included FELs, food sciences, the application of synchrotron radiation to 
archaeology and art, for example the examination of old paintings or 
artefacts, which would be interesting from the point of view of methods, 
detectors and experimental conditions. It was pointed out that Synchrotron 
Radiation News had also recently published an issue focusing on the latter. 
Forensics was also an area identified as having a large growth potential, and 
it was mentioned that some NSLS beamlines are used for forensics.

It was questioned whether we should open up the journal to include more 
papers on research with neutrons, capturing work done at large facilities in 
Argentina, Brazil and Australia. It was pointed out that there is already a 
journal concentrating on neutrons, Journal of Neutron Research, and also that 
we should concentrate more on what we already do and are good at, i.e. 
synchrotron radiation and FELs, and not dilute the journal by expanding into 
other areas.

Similarly, the research in the infra-red, active at places such as Brookhaven 
and Soleil, was mentioned as being under-represented in the journal, but it 
was questioned whether there would be enough material for a special issue and 
that again we should concentrate on the areas in which we are already 
established.


Leaflet

The general concensus was that the JSR marketing leaflet looked good and was
informative and eye-catching. It was commented that the leaflets must be 
working owing to the increased size of JSR over the last few years, and that 
we should carry on with them the way we are doing. The IUCr email to 
Co-editors inviting them to take leaflets to any meetings they may be 
attending was said to be a good thing, but a couple of Co-editors mentioned 
that sometimes the leaflets had not arrived before they had left for the 
meeting so it would be good to receive them a lot earlier. On leaflets at 
meetings in general, however, one Co-editor said he never looked at them and 
another said people tended to have a quick look and put them back down.


Submissions

It was felt that new submissions could be encouraged by using personal 
contact. It was also agreed that JSR had established itself as the place to 
publish. It was commented that, previously, the questions was `Where should
I publish my paper?' but now the question was `Which JSR Co-editor should I 
choose for my paper?'. The publication speed was important to the author but 
it seemed that the referees were the limiting factor in getting a paper 
published quickly; an automatic reminder to Co-editors about the length of 
time that referees had been working on a paper was welcomed.


Facility Information pages

The Facility Information pages in JSR were highly thought of, though it 
would be good to get more but was recognised that this may be difficult in the 
current climate. It was thought unlikely that the NSLS would be able to be 
persuaded to contribute, especially as they had stopped receiving the printed 
journal, but perhaps things might change when NSLS-II starts up.


Use of colour in the journal

Owing to the cost of printing colour it was decided that the Co-editors and
Technical Editor should be stricter on the use of colour figures in the  
journal. The Co-editor should be more aware of colour and inform the author 
if they thought a figure could be easily made black and white, but it was 
suggested that this should be the job of the Technical Editor while the 
Co-editor concentrated more on the science.