NEWS FROM EPS NOVEMBER-DECEMBER233 1996 An Excellent Omen Franco Gianturco, the Editor-in-Chief of Europhysics Letters, believes that the journal's first ten European Physical Society years are a good omen for the continuing success of this investment in a European future. EurophysNet - http:/epswww.epfl.ch/ Published by Europhysics News to inform members. Editor: P.G. Boswell, EPS, BP 69, CH- The idea of setting up a European Antonino Zichichi of Bologna on behalf of 1213, Petit-Lancy 2 - [email protected] journal comparable to Physical Review the Italian society, Philippe Nozieres on Tel+41-22-793 1130 - Fax+41-22-79313 Letters published by the American Physi­ behalf of the French Physical Society, cal Society had been around for a some Louis Michel (Les Editions de Physique), time back in the early-198os. Some physi­ Roy Pike (Institute of Physics), Gert Eilen- cists felt that they would prefer their berger from Jülich, Josef Devreese from Franco Gianturco, the results to be published in Europe rather Antwerp and, on behalf of the European Editor-in-Chief of Euro­ than elsewhere; others believed that the physics Letters, is professor Physical Society, Ted Shaw and Jacques of chemical physics at the standard of refereeing and speed of publi­ Friedel, who was the EPS President at the University of Rome "La cation for European papers submitted to time. An excellent account of the fairly Sapienza". Phys. Rev. Lett, were not to their complete stressful events that led up to the launch of satisfaction. Europhysics Letters in January 1986 was sions, contributions began to stream in. given by Ted Shaw in the special issue of There was a flood of excellent articles An Idea Became a Vigorous Reality Europhysics News devoted to the 25th anni­ within a very short time, with the number In addition to “short communica­ versary of EPS [EN 24 (1993) 149 ]. of manuscripts received in late-1985 and tions” in the Institute of Physics Journal of The launch took place under the aus­ throughout 1986 totalling 900 - a very sat­ Physics, four mainstream physics letters pices of 11 national societies (with the isfactory number for a new journal. journals were being published in Europe Scandinavian societies counting as a single Over the next ten years, Europhysics in the early 1980s. However, they neither unit) plus EPS. The partnership agreement Letters grew in size and in circulation, covered all areas of physics nor were they was based on Journal de Physique Lettres throughout Europe and the rest of the supported by authors from throughout and Lettere al Nuovo Cimento being world. In 1995, some 850 papers were Europe. Physics Letters A and Physics Let­ absorbed into the new journal, which set received and of these about 430 were pub­ ters B, both published by North Holland, to work with 12 carefully selected Co- lished - and the initial excitement has not were restricted to certain subfields. Of the Editors who were experts in various areas subsided. The acceptance rate has been two general letters journals, Journal de of physics. Nicholas Kurti of Oxford fairly steady at around 50%. Rapid publi­ Physique Lettres published by Les Editions received universal approval as the first cation is an essential feature of a letters de Physique catered principally for French Editor-in-Chief, and a further slate of journal. The median time from receipt to physicists while the other, Lettere al Nuovo around 30 Advisory Editors provided acceptance of a manuscript without revi­ Cimento published by the Italian Physical additional expertise and know-how when sions is 81/2 weeks, with publication Society, although managing to attract necessary. occurring within a further 6-7 weeks. international authors in some areas, was With a refereeing procedure designed mainly supported by Italian physicists. to ensure that no special patronage arose Much More than a Promising Future Throughout the early 1980s a group of and strong encouragement from the Co- As physicists are well aware of the physicists worked towards creating a Euro­ Editors, the Advisory Editors and physi­ advantages of electronic publishing and pean letters journal in physics, notably cists throughout the various EPS Divi- the potential of the Internet, following authors are encouraged to send the matching electronic ver­ Europhysics Letters sion together with PostScript files of figures to europhys- Submissions to Europhysics Letters (EPL) should contain [email protected]. Word and plain text files are accepted, but unlike TEX non-trivial new results, ideas, concepts, experimental meth­ and LATEX files they need partial retyping. Detailed author's ods, theoretical treatments, etc. and be of broad interest and instructions are available from the Editions de Physique at importance to one or or more sections of the physics commu­ http://www.ed_phys.fr/docinfos/OnlineEURO.html and at nity. The presentation should satisfy the specialist, yet remain http://www.sif.it. A set of LATEX macros are available from the understandable to those working in other fields. Editorial Office and by anonymous ftp at ftp.sif.it. The original and three copies of a manuscript should be The basic subscription price for 1997 is CHF1820,- p.a. sent to Mrs. E. Thomas, Staff Editor, Europhysics Letters, P.0. comprising 4 volumes of 9 issues (airmail delivery to Australia, Box 69, CH -1213 Petit-Lancy 2. Alternatively, authors may Canada, japan, the USA and South America included). Orders send the original and two copies to the Staff Editor and one to Les Editions de Physique, Ave. du Hoggar, Z.I. de Courta- copy directly to the Co-Editor whom they believe would be boeuf, BP 112, F-91944 Les Ulis Cedex A (fax: +33-1-69 28 84 responsible for their paper. The length of the manuscript 91; [email protected]). EPS Individual Ordinary Members enjoy should not exceed six journal pages (23500 equivalent charac­ a reduced basic subscription price of CHF 220,- (orders to EPS, ters, including formulae, figures, tables, and references but Nador u. 7, H-1051 Budapest). Personal subscription rates are not title, authors' names and abstract). also available to members of institutes having a full-price When the EPL Editorial Office informs the principal institutional subscription. All subscriptions include free-of- author that the article has been accepted for publication, charge access to the fully electronic on-line version. News Europhysics © 234 NEWS FROM EPS their acceptance, manuscripts can be e- mailed to the publisher as TEX files, so proof correction creates minimal delay. The EPS Divisions Moreover, the titles and abstracts of papers to be published in Europhysics Let­ Individual Ordinary Members (IOMs) of EPS as well as members of National Member ters are available at the publisher’s World- Societies which belong to EPS can join any number of EPS Divisions or Interdivisional Wide Web site to everyone with WWW Groups. IOMs need to inform the EPS Secretariat while National Society Members (NSMs) access (the URL is http://www.ed-phys.fr/ should contact a national society to which they belong. Arrangements are also being made to docinfos/OnlineEURO.html); abstracts are allow IOMs and NSMs join a Division by completing an appropriate form on the EPS Euro- incorporated into the CODAS alterting physNet WWW service (http//epswww.epfl.ch/). In the case of NSMs, the completed form is service. Subscribers to the printed edition automatically emailed to a designated national society if the society is one of those that accepts can access an electronic version of the registrations by email. journal via WWW at no extra charge Summaries of the Divisions and their activities are given below to help assist members (some 20% have elected to take advantage choose a Division and/or a Section within a Division. Many will no doubt appreciate that aside of this offer since its launch last year). from coordinating and promoting technical specialities and organizing conferences and publi­ One should remember that Europhys­ cations of all sorts, the Divisions and Section have many general activities. These include: pro­ ics Letters is a scientific endeavour run by viding independent expertise and advice upon request, as well as peer reviewers or referees for physicists. Although run extremely profes­ say the European Commission; proposing (in some cases organizing) European Research sionally, it is essentially not a commercial Conferences in Physics; proposing speakers for major EPS conferences such as the EPS Gen­ operation, so many technical issues are eral Conference; serving on editorial boards of publications; nominating an EPS Lecturer who approached for their scientific relevance makes open presentations across Europe; supporting measures to help physicists from the rather than for their ability to increase less-favoured regions of Europe participate in, and profit from, EPS initiatives. The summaries income. Technical improvements might below indicate for each Division and Section: the number of members; the number of partici­ thus be expected to take longer than for a pants and the dates and places of the next Division or Section conferences. Summaries of the commercial enterprise. However, the Interdivisional Groups will appear in the next issue of News from EPS. speed and manner in which modern sub­ • Astrophysics Division ( 688 ) has strong links to physical chemistry through a mission, production and publication pro­ Chair: H.C.E. Huber, Space Science Dept., ESA-ESTEC, POB Chemical Physics Symposium that was sponsored cedures have been adopted shows that 299, NL-2200 AG Noordijk [ +31 -71 -565 35 52 / 565 46 99 ] by the Faraday Society, the Deutsche Bunsen- Europhysics Letters has been able to [email protected]. Gesellschaft and the Soçiété Francaise de Chimie at Board: C. Chiuderi (Florence), A. de Rujula (CERN), M. Jacob ECAMP-5.