Editorial

Welcome to issue 1 of JAAS, 2005. The first issue of the year is a good time to bring to your attention the changes which have occurred in 2004, and highlight new developments for the coming year.

The major change last year was the retirement of Joseph Caruso, Cincinnati, USA, as Chair of the Editorial Board in the summer. Joe had served on the Editorial Board since 1998. He was the first North American Chair of JAAS and under his guidance the Board became more international. We are delighted that Joe will continue his involvement with the journal as a member of the Advisory Editorial Board.¹

Gary Hieftje, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, who joined the Editorial Board in 2001, took over the role of Chair from Joe.² Gary has been involved with JAAS right from the start as a member of the Advisory Board. In fact, the very first issue of the journal contains an Atomic Spectrometry Viewpoint, in which he was interviewed by the first Editorial Board Chair, John Ottaway.³

Stephen Hill, Plymouth, UK, retired at the end of 2004 after 10 years on the journal Editorial Board. Steve is Chair of the Atomic Spectrometry Updates Board⁴ and has played a significant role in developing the ASU reviews to become more critical and cover emerging areas.

2004 also brought technical innovations to improve our services to JAAS authors, referees and readers.

January 2004 saw the launch of the RSC’s Journals Archive. This fully searchable archive provides access to over 200 000 articles in 1.2 million pages published from 1841 to 1996. Readers can browse articles from JAAS from its launch in 1986 and its forerunner, Annual Reports on Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy, from 1971. Articles from The Analyst are available from 1876! For more details, please visit viawww.rsc.org/archive.

In October 2004 we announced the launch of ReSourCe, the RSC’s service for authors and referees, which streamlines the electronic submission and review processes. Authors can submit and track their manuscripts and collect pdf reprints, whilst referees are able to download articles for review, submit their report and see the outcome of manuscripts they examined. All this is available through a single entry point. For more information visit www.rsc.org/resource or read our recent editorial.⁵

New for 2005, you may already have noticed several changes to the look and feel of JAAS. The most obvious is the new front cover, a new style and design which extends across all RSC journals. We are looking to authors to provide eye-catching artwork to feature on the cover. If you have an image you would like to be featured alongside your paper, please contact the Editorial Office.

This issue also sees the introduction of illustrated contents entries to enhance the impact of papers in JAAS. You will see that we now encourage authors to supply colourful images to attract readers’ attention along with a short statement to highlight the novel aspects of the work reported. We do hope that this will make the contents of JAAS more attractive and easier to browse.

Also in this issue appears Chemical Science, which draws together the news and research highlights from all RSC publications, it provides a ‘snapshot’ of the latest developments across the chemical sciences. Chemical Science will appear monthly as a free supplement in the front of JAAS as well as other RSC publications, and will also be available online, at www.rsc.org/chemicalscience.

We also see the publication of our first Perspective article: Is it still possible, necessary and beneficial to perform research in atomic emission spectrometry? This personal view of the field by Jean-Michel Mermet appears in this issue.⁶

In 2005 we will bring you two special collections of papers. The first will arise from the forthcoming European Winter Conference, and later in the year a Guest Editor issue on Chemical Metrology, co-ordinated by Hywel Evans and Mike Sargent, will be published.

Finally, next year, JAAS reaches its 21st volume and the journal will be celebrating its coming-of-age. Plans for these celebrations are already underway: we hope you will join us in them and will bring you further details soon.

We look forward to receiving your papers throughout the coming year. We also value and welcome your comments and suggestions for JAAS. Please do feel free to contact a member of the Editorial Board or myself in the Cambridge Editorial Office. We look forward to hearing from you.

Claire Darby

Managing Editor

References

1. K. Wrobel, S. Kannamkumarath, K. Wrobel and J. A. Caruso, Green Chem., 2003, 5(2), 250–259; R. G. Willoud, J. C. A. de Willoud, A. P. Vonderheide and J. A. Caruso, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2003, 18(9), 1119–1124; C. A. Ponce de León, K. DeNicola, M. Montes Bayón and J. A. Caruso, J. Environ. Monit., 2003, 5(3), 435–440; S. S. Kannamkumarath, R. G. Willoud, A. Stalcup, J. A. Caruso, H. Patel and A. Sakr, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 19(1), 107–113; M. Montes Bayón, J. Meija, D. L. LeDuc, N. Terry, J. A. Caruso and A. Sanz-Medel, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 19(1), 153–158; A. P. Vonderheide, M. V. Zoriy, A. V. Izmer, C. Pickhardt, J. A. Caruso, P. Ostapczuk, R. Hille and J. S. Becker, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 18(5), 675–680; M. Shah, S. S. Kannamkumarath, J. C.A. Willoud, R.G. Willoud and J. A. Caruso, J. Anal. At.Spectrom., 2004, 19(3), 381–386; R.G. Willoud, N. Selar, S. S. Kannamkumarath and J. A. Caruso, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 19(11), 1442–1447.
2. K. Liu and G. M. Hieftje, J. Anal At. Spectrom., 2003, 18(10), 1177–1184; G. Gamez, M. Huang, S. A. Lehn and G. M. Hieftje, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2003, 18(5), 680–684; J. H. Barnes IV, G. D. Schilling, M. Bonner Denton, D. W. Koppenaal and G. M. Hieftje, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2003, 18(9), 1015–1018; J. H. Barnes IV, G. D. Schilling, R. P. Sperline, M. Bonner Denton, E. T. Young, C. J. Barinaga, D. W. Koppenaal and G. M. Hieftje, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 19(6), 751–756; J. H. Barnes IV and G. M. Hieftje, Analyst, 2004, 129(8), 779–782; J. H. Barnes IV, O. A. Grøn and G. M. Hieftje, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 19(12), 1564–1566.
3. J. M. Ottaway, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 1986, 1(1), 3–5.
4. S. J. Hill, T. A. Arowolo, O. T. Butler, S. R. N. Chenery, J. M. Cook, M. S. Cresser and D. L. Miles, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2002, 17(3), 284–317; S. J. Hill, T. A. Arowolo, O. T. Butler, J. M. Cook, M. S. Cresser, C. Harrington and D. L. Miles, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 19(2), 301–330.
5. S. J. R. Day, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2004, 19(10), 17N.
6. J.-M. Mermet, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2005, 20(1), 11–16.

---