EDITORIAL During the 21st FACSS conference in St Louis USA Dr Jim Harnly US Associate Editor of JAAS and Brenda Holliday interviewed Dr Barry Sharp Chairman of the Editorial Board and Judith Egan-Shultler about their memories of the early days of JAAS. Jim Brenda and I decided that on the occasion of the tenth Anniversary it would be very appropriate to interview founding members of the journal. Really you John Ottaway and Judith do constitute the forefathers (and mother) of the journal! I ’ve heard stories about the train trip when you and John Ottaway hatched the idea. Perhaps you could begin by giving us the full story. Barry exactly the start of it but it was the occasion on which the details came into being. The idea goes back to a time when we had the Old Annual Reports on Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy (ARAAS) which was published each year in the form of a book.ARAAS ran for 14 volumes from 1970-1984 following the seminal Sheffield Atomic Absorption Conference of 1968. In the early days ARAAS was highly regarded in that it was an annual summary of what had gone on in the analytical atomic spectrometry literature and it was pretty comprehensive. However as time went on the world changed and people were not so interested in a publication that was looking back over what was effectively sometimes 18 months to 2 years by the time it had gone into print. The demand was for more immediate information and so although a great deal of work went into ARAAS the evidence was that the sales were declining. I was Chairman of the ARAAS Board at the time when the idea of JAAS came about and within the ARAAS organization there had already been some discussions as to whether we shouldn’t change the format and make it into a review journal.I think that the problem was none of us really knew whether there was a market for it. John Ottaway on the other hand had recently joined ARAAS and was still a relatively new boy at that stage but at the same time he was Chairman of the Analytical Editorial Board which ran The Analyst. He foresaw another problem in that there was an increasing number of atomic spectroscopy papers and these were taking up more and more space in The Analyst. It’s a fact in the publishing world that it’s relatively easy to generate papers but more difficult to sell journals and so if you’ve got a major part of your journal growing rapidly but you’re not actually increasing the sales you’re got a problem.John foresaw that contrary to some comments at the time the Well the train trip wasn’t analytical atomic spectrometry literature would continue to grow and since the RSC had always played a part in publishing that work he felt that there was space for a new vehicle for publication. It was on the train journey from St Pancras Station up to Sheffield one night (I can’t remember what we were both doing in London because at that time I lived in Aberdeen and John lived near Glasgow) when John told me about the idea that he felt there was space for another journal. He asked me what I felt about ARAAS joining in and I said that we had considered the journal format and therefore this would be a happy combination.What really took shape on that journey was the concept of JAAS and I think the name (or the suggestion for the name) and the notion that it would be a primary journal with normal review material but it would also incorporate the annual reviews as a major and differentiating feature. Another concern was (and I think it was a very important one) that whereas The Analyst had always been fairly international it was nevertheless perceived as slightly European particularly by the American market and clearly if any analytical atomic spectrometry journal was going to be successful the American market was important. So I think one of the important conclusions we arrived at was that we had to have an editorial base in the US so that US authors could deal with colleagues and peers whom they knew.The rest of the discussions were on technical matters such as how you could actually go from a once every 12 months publication to an every 2 month publication. A lot of ideas were kicked around and subsequently these were put to the Analytical Editorial Board and the ARAAS Editorial Board and both agreed that a new journal was the best way forward. This was certainly a means of keeping the ARAAS principle going and also being able to market it successfully. I suppose from then on we really got into the nitty gritty of it and market surveys were done. Judith I had been aware for some time that something had to be done about the large increase in submissions to The Analyst as I was working as an Assistant Editor at that time on the analytical journals.It was clear that atomic spectrometry was one area where publications were increasing rapidly. However the first I actually heard about the new journal was from John Ottaway who I knew as Chairman of the Analytical Editorial Board. One advantage of having our offices in London was that people would drop in quite often when in town for meetings so we used to see John fairly regularly as he took his duties as Chairman very seriously. Anyway I was ill for a while and John wrote to me telling me to get well quickly as all sorts of exciting things were happening back at the office and it looked as if we were going to have a new journal to work on. At that time this was a major step for the RSC and I know John had to work very hard on his selling job to all the relevant RSC committees but he managed it in the end and by the time I got back to work things were beginning to happen.In fact from then on things had to move pretty quickly as once a decision had been taken plans had to be made to handle the smooth transfer of the ARAAS material to ASU to ensure continuity of coverage. This was no easy task and I think at one point the only people who fully understood the ASU abstracting system were myself Doug Miles Dave Hickman and Barry-it was very complicated! Brenda right from the start on how you were going to promote this new journal? Barry The strategy first involved doing a market survey and this was carried out by the professional staff at the RSC.Basically it was a circular to the analytical atomic spectroscopy community worldwide to ask them if really there was a market. I guess that’s a difficult question because with library budgets shrinking and they were probably even shrinking in those days people were not naturally inclined to vote for a new journal. Nevertheless I think there were enough people out there who saw that perhaps there would be scope for a new specialist journal so when the market report came back it was reasonably positive. I think it was the case that people were quite happy with the concept that there was space in terms of numbers of publications for another journal they were much less happy about having to pay for it or persuade their library committees to put money up for it Judith comprehensive telephone survey to judge peoples opinions.One thing that So was there a strategy then I think they also did a 2 N Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry January 1995 Vol. 10was a key factor as regards obtaining subscribers to this new journal was that we already had a base on which to work the existing ARAAS subscribers whom we hoped would transfer their subscriptions to JAAS. So we were not starting from scratch so to speak. There was also a worldwide network of people who were or had been at some time associated with ARAAS who we hoped would support the journal with primary papers and subscriptions. Also the vision that John had for this journal was of something quite different to anything already out there in the market place not just because it contained the ASU material.He wanted the journal to be called spectrometry not spectroscopy as he considered it to be a measurement technique being carried out by people in thousands of laboratories all around the world as opposed to the more physical aspects of the science being studied by spectroscopists. The journal was intended to be of interest to everyone involved in any area of spectrometry from students to esteemed professors to heads of research laboratories. John wanted JAAS to become part of the atomic spectrometry community and was very keen to develop the News Pages as being a focus for this large family of people who were all friends not just work colleagues meeting up regularly at conferences around the world. Many people have since said to me that they read the News Pages first and thoroughly enjoy them.They have helped show students that their peers are human after all enjoying the social side of conferences given students the opportunity to write conference reports instead of always writing technical reports kept people in touch with how we are all ageing (gracefully we hope) by publishing lots of photographs and many other bits of information of general interest. Through this unique concept for ajournal John was convinced we would have a success on our hands. Jim When during this start up process did you become involved Judith? My understanding from John was that you were hand picked by him to be his editor. Judith I was appointed as Editor in I think the February of 1985 but just to clarify how cautious the RSC were about any new publishing ventures in those days I was only given a temporary upgrading to Editor.I still had to spend some of my time working on The Analyst as it was still considered to be a big risk and no one thought working on JAAS would ever be a full time job little did they know! Eventually after about 18 months they made the job official and I actually had to apply for my own position. I am flattered that you think John hand picked me but although I know he thought I would be the right person for the type of editor he had in mind I have to say that the decision was purely an RSC Management one. John wanted the Editor to become part of the atomic spectrometry community for the people involved in the field to then feel it was their journal and that they were part of it.The Analytical Journals Staff had always attended major analytical conferences but other RSC journal staff did not. John’s idea was to have a higher profile still at conferences and that I should be out and about as much as possible-not an easy thing for the RSC to appreciate at that time as you can imagine. Our major competitor journals all had academic editors who were obviously going to be at all of these meetings so I had to be there too. I was also co-opted on to the Committee of the Atomic Spectroscopy Group of the RSC to ensure that I knew what was going on in the UK and to help them in any way I could. This led to my involvement with BNASS which I always thoroughly enjoyed. Barry I think that is absolutely right.I didn’t know Judith at this stage. I only knew Phil Weston and some of the analytical editorial staff and people in the Books Department who were producing ARAAS. John did know Judith and I think he felt that she was the right person to get the journal up and running. He obviously saw that she had the right qualities that would give us a presence in the market place and of course that turned out to be a very happy and appropriate choice. I can remember even today meeting Judith. I was in a Hall of Residence in Sheffield at the annual ARAAS meeting and this young woman passed on the stairs and I thought ‘Who the hell is that? I don’t think she’s anything to do with us’. Later in the evening John introduced us and I think she must have come to that meeting with some trepidation and perhaps she was a little surprised when she met the analytical spectroscopy community in the UK because they are a fun loving bunch! Judith I can still remember my first ARAAS/ASU meeting too.I arrived knowing only John and handful1 of other people and walked into this large room where the evening was clearly already going with a swing old friends obviously pleased to see each other. Beer and sandwiches were being consumed in vast quantities and I could see only one other woman (Joan Rooke) in the room. What had I let myself in for was all I could think. I have to say that before the evening was out my awe of many of the major workers in the field whose names I had read hundreds of time in the course of editing had been dispelled they were all so friendly and I was soon made to feel welcome and part of the group.I think one of the reasons for this might have been that I gave them an air of respectability in the discos-it certainly helped them having one woman around to dance with. Returning to the office a few days later with sore feet and feeling a lot more relaxed about the prospect of the task ahead of me it rather surprised my colleagues to know which of the well known analytical scientists were the leaders of the expeditions to the discos. Jim Was the RSC enthusiastic in responding to this idea of a new journal. What was the journal turnover response? Was it something to jump at or did you have a sales job on your hands? Barry No there was a definite sales job to be done and really it was John who carried it through. I don’t think the RSC is unenthusiastic about new publishing ventures in fact like most publishers they are keen to spot new openings but rightly so the people who look after the financial side in the Society have to take a cautious approach and it was those people that John had to convince to go along with the launch of JAAS.Fortunately John had great personality and drive and he managed to carry that through and hence we’ve now got JAAS. Brenda A lot of people associate JAAS now with publishing ICP-MS papers. How did that come about? Barry I think it came about because the early workers in the field recognized that this was a new branch of atomic spectroscopy that would be used and developed largely by scientists who had experience in optical atomic spectrometry not mass spectrometry.JAAS was a new journal without a historical affiliation with particular techniques and therefore was an obvious vehicle for publications in new areas such as ICP-MS. Brenda Is this another example ofthe John Ottaway-Judith persuasive combination . . . ? Judith I think we came along at just the right time for ICP-MS and we all benefitted. Alan Date and Alan Gray’s first paper had appeared in the December 1983 issue of The Analyst and we went to great lengths to have their reprints ready for the Winter Conference in Orlando in January 1984? I know Alan Date who was already part of the atomic spectroscopy community really appreciated this as it was such an exciting time for ICP-MS and he wanted to go to Orlando with his published paper in his hand.I think this attitude towards our authors to Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry January 2995 Vol. 10 3 Nput ourselves out whenever we could help them really paid off as they always seemed to support us from then on having seen what a good service we gave. Alan Gray is on the Advisory Board and has always been very supportive of the journal. Early on we also received excellent papers from the people at VG probably because Robert Hutton had been one of John’s PhD students John could be very persuasive. In the course of time we became the obvious journal for ICP-MS papers which was great. Jim age was also certainly through the involvement with the publishing of the Winter Plasma Conference with Ray Barnes and then some of the Winter Plasma Conferences in Europe.My own observation (that the selection of Judith provided a presence for JAAS) is that this is what is distinctly diflerent about JAAS. Would you care to expand on this. Was it intentional. It sounds like John’s idea. Barry also a reflection of the way the RSC operates its journal publications. Most of the commercial publishers when they set up a new publishing venture appoint an Editorial Board and a Chairman of that Board or an Editor who is a major figure in the academic community. That person will normally be paid and will promote the journal both in terms of getting papers and carrying out some of the editorial work of the journal. The RSC doesn’t work that way. The RSC employs professional Editorial Staff who deal with nearly all the editorial and administrative matters. Editorial Boards are appointed to represent the scientific community at which the journal is aimed to advise on matters of policy and to ensure that appropriate standards are maintained.Now there was a departure with JAAS in the sense that we did take on a major name in the academic field your goodself in an editorial role. We still needed a professional editor but John realized that our professional editor would also have to be a public figure in the analytical community. Judith didn’t come from an analytical research background and it was much to her credit that she was able to gain the confidence of the scientific community so that they wanted to do business with her and publish in JAAS. I think that was one of her achievements in her reign as Editor.Judith Not for the first time I must present my credentials for running JAAS! I don’t know what makes you think I did not have an analytical background but after university I worked in an analytical laboratory for I think the new era of coming of It was intentional but it was four years and then on the editorial staff of the Analytical Journals at the RSC for 7-8 years before taking on JAAS. I would have thought that was a reasonable background for the job! Jim M y personal experiences include attending my first CSI where my job was to take you around Judith and introduce you to all thefigures in atomic spectroscopy and you rapidly became friends with many of the people in the area. With the Editor as a publicfigure this constituted a pursuit of papers which was diflerent from the RSC standard a much more abrasive approach.Barry Yes I think JAAS has broken a lot of new ground in the RSC. The RSC is a learned society and has always taken the view that it had high quality journals and if you had a high quality journal then people would automatically publish with you. I guess over the years that has been borne out but I think again John saw correctly that the world was changing and that there would be competition for papers particulary for quality papers especially in the analytical field and we wouldn’t succeed with that very laid back approach. Judith The CSI in Garmisch which Jim just referred to was my first international meeting in my new role and I was fairly apprehensive about the whole trip.John had told me not to worry as he and all his group would be there. What he did not tell me was that they would not arrive until halfway through the week and I had to fight my own battles until they arrived. Jim was extremely helpful and made sure I met lots of people and was not left to eat dinner on my own. However I had not anticipated how anti-JAAS some people were at that time and I really had some very unfortunate discussions with a number of people prior to John’s arrival of course. When John did finally arrive I was in a state of panic wondering what I had got into but he reassured me it would all calm down and be a success in the end which of course it was and these opponents graciously became friends in the end. He then asked me to organize a Board Lunch for about 25 people for the next day.More panic not speaking any German and not knowing where to start. I used my initiative and I think Jim helped too and we had an excellent meeting and lunch for our new Board. This turned out to be the first of many such events at conferences around the world. I soon realized this was John’s way of getting the best out of people encouraging them to do things they did not think they could do but he knew jolly well they could. John had then wanted me to go on to the Graphite Furnace Post-Symposium in Meersburg. However the next week I went to my first FACSS meeting in Philadelphia and I did not at that time want to be away from home for almost three weeks so I came home. I never guessed that eight years later I would be living just 3 km down the road from such a beautiful place as Meersburg and I now realize what a great opportunity I missed back in 1985.Brenda idea of where papers were going to come from? Barry I think initially we thought papers would come from people who’d been involved in ARAAS or publishing in The Analyst a sort of core group that would at least provide the papers for the first two or three issues but we didn’t have in mind any particular subject areas. I think one of the things we were pleasantly surprised to find when we started getting papers was that we were attracting them from across the spectrum (if I can use that word) of analytical atomic spectrometry. Now I am sometimes asked ‘Is this paper suitable for JAAS because it’s too theoretical? The answer to that is clearly ‘No’.Equally people come up to me and say ‘Is this paper suitable for JAAS you only take theoretical papers is it too applied?’ Happily once again the answer is ‘No’. We interpret our remit very liberally and even our atomic remit I think we interpret as liberally as we can. In these days when speciation is so important it is often difficult to define where the boundary between atomic and other spectroscopies lie. Our view is that to define it would be totally wrong and our approach is to look at each paper as it comes in send it to our referees and make a valued judgement as to whether that paper is of interest to our readers. Whether it’s defined as one kind of spectroscopy or another is not important only whether the readers of JAAS and the potential market for JAAS wants to see that information in print is important and if we think that is the case we will take it.Judith We initially used the same typesetter and printer as The Analyst so that if we were ever short of papers for an issue we could ask authors for their permission to transfer their paper from The Analyst to JAAS. We only ever did this with one paper and that was not because we were short of papers but because we felt that paper would be more appropriate in JAAS. The first issue had 15 excellent papers in it but the second was a bit thinner and more of a struggle to get together with 11 papers. After that though we never looked back never being short of papers. The Analyst certainly did not suffer from the appearance of JAAS Did you at the time have an 4N Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry January 1995 Vol. 10either it was almost as if all the publicity and interest in JAAS renewed peoples interest in The Analyst which did not solve the problem of The Analyst getting larger in fact it went from strength to strength.Brenda particular moment that JAAS is now successful? Were you able to say at one Barry I don’t think there was ever a particular moment. After the first year it was fairly clear that we would be successful both in terms of the input of papers and the likely sales which of course were on a reasonable up-slope at that time. Judith In the late summer of the first year John actually came down to London specifically to argue a case for going to eight issues in the second year.He felt already that the journal was here to stay but eight issues would clearly upset the business plan and the RSC needed convincing. We wanted to introduce two dedicated conference issues. We were in negotiation with Ray Barnes for the Winter Conference and it was felt that papers from BNASS would obviously be more appropriate in JAAS than in The Analyst where they had previously appeared. Conference issues were thought to be a good way of getting new authors to try publishing in the journal and we knew that if we gave them a good service they would stick with us. This proved to be an excellent philosophy as it worked particularly with US authors who attended the Winter Conferences. In his inimitable style John won the day but not without a hard battle.The RSC were still being very careful not having launched a new journal for a long time. Fortunately today they are more aware of the changing areas in scientific publishing and are a bit more adventurous but it was a different matter ten years ago. Over the years the conferences we have covered have expanded to include other major international conferences including the CSI this being yet another example of John’s foresight as to what would make a successful journal. Sadly before the year was out I was actually planning another Special Issue for January 1988 dedicated to the memory of John who died suddenly in October 1986 in the first year of publication of the journal he had worked so hard to get into existence. I believe this was the best issue we ever produced it was certainly not an easy thing to do but the final result was excellent.It was then to Les Ebdon’s credit that he took over the reins as Chairman and succeeded in carrying the journal through its initial few years to the great success it is today. Jim Looking back now after 10 years how would you evaluate the success of JAAS? Has it lived up to your expectations or beyond your expectations? Barry primary material it has exceeded our expectations because I suggest that we’ve become one of the two principle journals for spectrometry and analytical atomic spectrometry and I think the quality of our output matches that of any other journal. Also we’ve been fortunate in receiving a very broad spread of papers from across the various subject areas.Another success has been the continuing publication of the ASU Reviews. ARAAS lasted for 14 years and it was a huge amount of work done annually by about 20-30 people on a purely voluntary basis. Nowadays peoples’ working environments are very different to what they were in 1984 and even more so than in 1970 and no-one I know has that sort of spare time anymore. A group of around 30 people still produce these reviews every year and I think it is a great tribute to the ASU Board and to various Chairman who have kept it going. So on the input side we are more than satisfied but if you look at the actual marketing side of the journal then I guess we wouldn’t be so happy. However all journals would like to think they could sell more issues than they are able.I think in terms of the input of Judith Now being married to one of the ASU authors I can categorically say I do not know why these people do it. The time Ian has to spend on writing his section is incredible but he says it is all time well spent as it is an excellent way of keeping up with current literature. I would like now to apologize to all ASU authors for all the telephone calls and hassling I gave them over the years to get their material in on time and for a quick turnround of their proofs. I can see how difficult this is and how dedicated they must be to stick with it! Jim climate towards journals right now is quite dificult. Of course the whole economic Barry launched say even ten years before we could have enjoyed a substantial period of sales growth.Whereas the sales of JAAS are perfectly adequate we’re not in a period when any journal is increasing its sales. We had hoped at the outset to be on a continuing gradual sales up-slope but what we’ve done is to more-or-less reach an equilibrium. Almost every other journal is losing sales and so to stand still is to do well. Exactly. Had the journal been Brenda Two things that have happened very recently are moving to 12 issues which certainly was as a result of the number of papers sent to JAAS and the production of JAASbase. Do you just want to comment on that? Barry I think the move to 12 issues was inevitable because we have had a very healthy supply of papers. There are technical reasons why it is easy to work on a monthly cycle in terms of production of the journal not least the fact that in a monthly cycle if a paper just misses the deadline it is not held back for two months.So if we are looking at lead times to publication 12 issues a year is helpful. The other aspect of 12 issues is that there is a marketing benefit in that a journal which is dropping on your desk monthly is much more in the forefront of your mind than one that comes in two-monthly. If you are thinking of placing work you’re getting that monthly reminder of the presence of the journal in the market place. Moving on to JAASbase. JAASbase as a suggestion has been around once again for quite a long while originating from the Atomic Spectrometry Updates Board. The Board looks at the abstracts that come into the RSC from all over the world and then writes reviews based upon those abstracts and also extracts tabular information which appears in ASU.We’ve done the hard work and all the hours have gone into it so in a sense after that it should be largely a technical issue to get that into a computer format. So we launched JAASbase. I think everyone who has used JAASbase has found it a very useful product to have. Certainly I use it regularly and my research students wouldn’t be without it. Again it finds itself in a fairly competitive world and computer technology changes so quickly that you’re never quite sure whether you’re doing the right thing at the right time. We envisaged JAASbase as a personal product that would be on peoples’ desks on their PCs or on the PCs that they are running their instruments from. We tried to present it in such a way for example making it a floppy disk based system as opposed to a CD-ROM based system so that it is a low cost personal product rather than being in direct competition with the major on-line data base services.Jim People are asking why it wasn’t put on CD-ROM originally. Barry JAASbase was planned three years ago and the computer market place and technology have moved on since then. We may be in a position where we have to review our policy and think whether perhaps we shouldn’t be looking at incorporating abstracts into JAASbase and offering CD-ROM Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry January 1995 Vol. 10 5Nversions. It would increase the price but it may be that we have to think of more imaginative ways of marketing it perhaps offering it at different levels to different end users.This is an area we’ve got to look at because since we’ve had JAASbase for a couple of years we have probably got enough feedback from the users to know what’s good about it and what isn’t good and clearly where we’ve got negative messages we’ll have to do something about it. Jim Another interesting point which was made to me recently was that for archival purposes it would be nice to have JAAS at the end of the year on CD-ROM as a single compilation of the entire year S features. Barry JAAS is available in electronic format through the journals on-line service but that again is another wire service not available as a packaged product to individuals. Now as you say to have a package on CD-ROM would perhaps be the best way of proceeding but it wouldn’t be a simple issue because we have to decide as we did with JAASbase that the support software is going to be to make it readily searchable and addressable.The Royal Society of Chemistry is very interested in electronic publishing and is looking at ways of introducing it in the Society. The major point that we need to get right is a universally accepted format. Judith As a final comment I would just like to say that the years I spent building up and working on JAAS were great. I definitely had to work hard but I got so much out of it too that I have no complaints at all. This was helped by all of the Editorial Boards and of course the great Assistant Editors who have worked on JAAS all of whom had the same enthusiasm as me for the journal.I appreciated the chance to meet so many wonderful people from all around the globe many of whom have become firm friends this big ‘family’ of atomic spectroscopists becoming important in my life. One thing that we have always been keen to do is to involve students as much as possible in this ‘JAAS family’ and it was always encouraging to see people who were doing their PhDs over the years all now having successful careers of their own. The down side of becoming part of such a family is that the loss of someone is felt very deeply. In the past ten years JAAS and I have lost some good friends starting with John then Alan Date Peter Keliher Frans Maessen and last year Dave Hickman and Klaus Dittrich all of whom were supporters of JAAS and examples of the wonderful people I met in the course of my job.I am sorry that my continued involvement did not work out but having put so much of me into JAAS I do hope that the spirit of JAAS which John knew was necessary to its success and which I and the other members of the editorial team over the years worked so hard at lives on. I have a lot to thank JAAS for including meeting my husband incidentally at my first BNASS meeting in 1986 and hence my baby Julian David. I am sure I will still have the chance to meet some of my friends again at conferences and look forward to reading about the second ten years of JAAS in 2006. Barry I would like to echo Judith’s comments. The greatest pleasure that I have derived from being associated with JAAS has been working with the many friends and colleagues who have contributed to its success. Starting with John and then Judith and then Les Ebdon who did much to build on the excellent start that John had made. I should also like to mention friends from the ASU Board Doug Miles the current chairman and then going back further John Davison and Malcolm Cresser who have been with us from the ARAAS days. I suppose my affiliation with JAAS really began in 1973 when I attended my first ARAAS meeting in Sheffield. Sadly as Judith has mentioned we have lost more than our share of friends and colleagues and of course some of the best scientists in our field. I would add the name of Gordon Kirkbright who was a strong supporter of ARAAS and no doubt would have played an important part in the development of JAAS. Nevertheless ours has always been a very open community and we take great pleasure in seeing younger workers coming through and contributing to the JAASIASU organizations. Similarly and inevitably there are changes in the editorial staff and recently we have had the pleasure of working with our new editorial manager Janice Gordon. I do not know what the future is although I am fairly certain that the next decade will see more substantial changes in the world of journal publishing than we have seen perhaps since the start of ARAAS. My hope is that JAAS will continue to serve the analytical atomic spectrometry community and that those who follow derive as much pleasure from their involvement as I have. 6 N Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry January 1995 Vol. 10