EDITORIAL
Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society: 25 years of success
Twenty-five years ago, when launching the Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society-JBCS, the Brazilian Chemical Society marked a qualitative leap for the Brazilian chemistry. Entirely devised by Professor Eduardo Motta Alves Peixoto,1 its first editor, the journal was victorious since the very beginning. Published in English in order to make the Brazilian chemistry known, the secret of the JBCS success has always been originality, one of its trademark till this day.
From a historical point of view, it is very clear that having not just followed ready and finished models was a wise strategy of all those who were editors of the journal for very few Brazilian journals present the quality and the success of the JBCS.2,3
Indexed in the most important international databases, due to Professor Romeo Cardozo Rocha Filho's efforts, the journal has been accepted and valued by the Brazilian chemical community since the very beginning. While in other areas of knowledge, its researchers have always looked at the Brazilian journals of their areas with disdain, chemists have always been proud of their journals. It is not uncommon and, in fact, it is very comforting to see an adviser be inquired by a student with the following question: 'why don't we submit our findings to the JBCS?”
Despite all the success,4 though, we must not relax our efforts on the ground of having reached perfection. It is important not to lose the ability to reinvent oneself whenever changes are needed and they will certainly be.
Nowadays, there is a lot of pressure from the major publishing houses on the journals published by the developing nations' scientific societies. It is common to see Brazilian researchers being invited to become editors of new journals, as well as scientific societies surrendering and delivering their journals to major publishing houses. One cannot forget that, behind all that, there is a very profitable market, with prices of journal subscriptions rising every year, which has forced the Senate of the richest country in the world to express its concern about the continuity of those subscriptions because of the lack of university budget. That means that each JBCS qualitative leap will increase the pressure to have it linked to a major publishing house, because, according to them, this will bring it a greater international visibility as well as a reduction of work for editors who have to give up hours of work for their researches and tutoring in favor of the journal.
What many foresaw as the biggest JBCS problem, that is, the lack of the published articles' citation, has not come true.5 In fact, four of its articles have got more than three hundred citations and other four, more than one hundred. Thus, visibility is not what the journal lacks. Very much on the contrary, publishing in the JBCS yields citations.
Putting all that have been written in a nutshell, there is a watershed in Brazilian chemistry: the before and the after of the Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society.
Angelo C. Pinto
IQ-UFRJ /PG-IME
- 1. Peixoto, E.M.A.; J. Braz. Chem. Soc. 1990, 1, 1. http://jbcs.sbq.org.br/imagebank/pdf/JBCS_Editorial_1-1.pdf
- 2. Pinto, A. C.; Cunha, A. S.; Quim. Nova 2008, 31, 2221. http://quimicanova.sbq.org.br/imagebank/pdf/Vol31No8_2221_51-AG08604.pdf
- 3. de Andrade, J. B.; J. Braz. Chem. Soc. 2009 , 20(1), iii. http://jbcs.sbq.org.br/imagebank/pdf/v20n1a01.pdf
- 4. Pinto, A. C.; de Andrade, J. B.; J. Braz. Chem. Soc 2012, 23, 2131. http://jbcs.sbq.org.br/imageBank/pdf/v23n12a01.pdf
- 5. Meneghini, R.; J. Braz. Chem. Soc. 2014, 25, 1. http://jbcs.sbq.org.br/imagebank/pdf/v25n5a01.pdf
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
13 Nov 2014 -
Date of issue
Nov 2014
