EDITORS' NOTE
On museums and scientific journals
Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can't take it in all at once.
Audrey Hepburn
As many other leading journals, for several years RBP has published on its cover photographs or works of art produced by national artists or those with close connections with our country. This task was performed over the years until the end of 2011 with great enthusiasm and dedication by Professor Jair Mari, RBP Emeritus Editor, and Mr. Charles Cosac, from Cosac & Naify publishing house. Works by several important Brazilian artists such as Siron Franco and Bob Wolfenson have been depicted on the cover of our journal, which allowed us to disseminate part of the national artistic production. In an unprecedented partnership with the publishers, from this edition on and throughout the year, RBP will have on the cover of every issue an art work that belongs to the Museum of Contemporary Art collection of the Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP). Each work will be accompanied by an entry about the author, and the work will be discussed by leading art experts and teachers.
MAC-USP was founded in 1963 and celebrates its 50th anniversary next year. This is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in Latin America. In addition to that, MAC-USP has academic activities related to History, Education, Museology, Art theory and criticism. The collection has more than 10,000 art works on display and includes works by Picasso, Tarsila do Amaral, Matisse, Miró, Di Cavalcanti, Volpi, among many others. Thus, it is possible to make a parallel between the current phase of RBP and what MAC-USP has consolidated - to spread globally the best national and international works of Brazilian and foreign authors, new and renowned ones, consolidating itself as a worlwide instrument of progress and globalization of science (art, in the case of the Museum).
It is known that the forgery of art works is relatively common, especially paintings, as they are often difficult to detect. For this reason, all major museums in the world, including MAC-USP, constantly seek to obtain mechanisms to ensure that the works exhibited there are authentic and original. Similar is the responsibility of the review and editing processes of a scientific journal to establish the originality of its publications. Peer-review involves several steps that seek to improve and refine the original and relevant publications. Peer-review is a fundamental mechanism to ensure high-quality of scientific publications. However, this process still seems to be at fault to detect cases of plagiarism or articles duplication.1
So, starting this year, RBP will begin to use the iThenticate® software, which allows the comparison of submitted manuscripts with other texts published in the literature, testing the originality of the article. This tool has clients such as journals from the Nature Publishing Group and Oxford University Press, and the World Health Organization. The use of iThenticate® to identify possible plagiarism is seen as a breakthrough for RBP and reinforces the constant pursuit for quality and credibility by the editors of our journal.
In 2011, MAC-USP will receive a new building in Parque Ibirapuera with greater capacity to house their activities and exhibit its collection. This will allow the Museum to be repositioned in the cultural circuit of São Paulo as a center of training and information, as well as a new leisure option. Similarly, the ABP Directors Board is performing a comprehensive improvement in the Association's facilities in São Paulo, where the RBP has its editorial routine activities and where editors meet monthly for a variety of decisions on the journal's agenda, flow and contents. This measure will surely result in more comfort for the employees and the entire team of RBP editors, as well as valorize a ABP's patrimony.
MAC-USP, in addition to its mission of promoting the study and dissemination of its collection, seeks to develop teaching activities and training new talents. We understand that the new needs space and encouragement. Correspondingly, the editors of RBP that came before us implemented an innovative and unique initiative among national scientific journals, by creating the Junior Editor position. Through this initiative, young talents became part of the Editorial Board, always tutored by Senior Editors, allowing them to learn all stages of the editorial process. We are proud of the fact that this initiative has served as a model for several other national and international scientific publications. In particular, an example of this successful initiative can be embodied in today's associate editor of RBP, Dr. Christian Kieling, who is leaving us in this edition. Dr. Christian was Junior Editor and later, Associate Editor, and contributed greatly to the development of RBP with active participation in all the journal's achievements in recent years.
Throughout this period, he also participated in the World Psychiatric Publications Association Task Force and initiatives such as the Movement for Global Mental Health, contributing with texts in scientific publications (including the prestigious Lancet and our RBP) and woking directly with the editors of other international scientific journals. This task force helped to disseminate the research of low- and middle-income countries to increase the quality and chance of indexing for these publications. He always showed to the world our successful experience in RBP as a model, which makes us very proud. However, Dr. Kieling decided it was time to move on to seek new challenges and to provide opportunities for new colleagues that have arrived. After all, art should be itinerant. Thanks for everything, Christian!
Finally, we would like to thank Professor Dr. Tadeu Chiarelli director of MAC-USP, Ms. Ana Lucia Siqueira and the Deliberative Council of the Museum for their efforts to provide the right to publish images of the art works and to formalize the partnership, as well as the teachers and art experts who wrote articles to be published in RBP.
José Alexandre S. Crippa,
Marcos Hortes Nisihara Chagas,
João Quevedo,
Marcelo Q. Hoexter,
Tais Moriyama,
Giovanni Abrahão Salum,
Leonardo F. Fontenelle,
Guilherme V. Polanczyk,
Marcelo P. Fleck
- 1. Long TC, Errami M, George AC, Sun Z, Garner HR. Scientific integrity. Responding to possible plagiarism. Science. 2009;323(5919):1293-4.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
19 June 2012 -
Date of issue
June 2012
