The delay in the publication of volume 22 has been occasioned, I regret to say, by the editorial team being overwhelmed by the need to complete their assemblage of a new volume on the Estuaries of South Africa for Cambridge University Press. This task and the preparation of the camera-ready copy of volume 22 coincided. I leave the rest to your imagination!
Notwithstanding, I am most grateful for the increased flow of good papers and I hope that readers will find something of specific interest in both volume 22 which has gone to press and volume 23 which will go to press in August. When volume 23 has been published, we will be in phase with the year, 1997.
It is most unfortunate that the Victoria Fall Conference has yielded so few papers. Members may remember that it was the intention to publish in a symposium format many of the papers which were presented at this meeting. I fear the road to Hell is paved with good intentions and colleagues who thought they would be able to make the deadline were unable to. Nevertheless there were a few stalwart souls and we have considered each contribution as a normal paper to the journal, namely they have been subject to peer review. The accepted papers will appear in volume 23.
Professor Rob Hart has drawn my attention to a new "Impact Factor" (IF) which is apparently rampant among the journals of South Africa. Do I get a hint of yet another ranking device to tell us how supposedly bad or good we are? It would appear that the SA Journal of Aquatic Sciences has a significantly lower IF than Water SA - hardly comparable journals considering the strong technological bias in Water SA. Furthermore, we are a Journal without outside financial assistance: the members' fees and what we save from our annual symposia have allowed us to continue publication over these many years. But this is insufficient cause for us to become complacent and it's for this reason that I would urge the Society to take advantage of Internet.
An important advance with respect to wider circulation of the journal and its contents must be the World Wide Web. Marcus Wishart of the Freshwater Research Unit has been investigating the potential of the Internet as such a medium. His research is positive and I recommend that we give him the go ahead to post the journal as it presently exists on the WWW and that at least, initially, it be freely available and that no charges be put in place, subject to the review and approval of the executive committee.
Members will appreciate that this is only one of the ways in which our work will get known internationally. The role of the abstracting journals is still important. It is incumbent upon the Journal Secretary that these important contacts are reviewed from time to time. In this regard I appreciate the effort of Helen James and Ferdie de Moor who maintain the necessary contact.
Finally, I have decided to retire as editor. It is
time a younger person with new vision took
over. I have informed the President and he
appreciates my other reason that it really is time
Sue and I were able to smell the
roses without worrying about what
was left undone by our doing so.
Thank you for giving me the
opportunity to continue the
development of the journal.
The spectrum of subject matter received for review over the years has been wide and I hope that this editorial policy will be continued by the next editor. However, following a request from the executive committee, I have had discussions with the editor, Dr Stan Pillar of the SA J of Marine Science. Both he and Andy Paine are interested in a possible merger of these two journals to create a Southern African Journal of Marine and Freshwater Science. This would be an exciting and challenging development in the journal's history which would continue to require the skills and tact of a dedicated editor.
-- Brian Allanson
