The 2013 meeting of the editorial board of The American Journal of Cardiology ( AJC ) was held on March 10, 2013, in San Francisco, California, at the time of the Annual Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology Foundation. The meeting’s purpose was to review the AJC ‘s publication results for 2012, to recognize in particular those AJC board members who had reviewed the most manuscripts in 2012, and to receive criticisms and suggestions from board members on how to improve the journal. The meeting went as follows:
- 1.
The publisher of the AJC, Jane Grochowski, presented information on how the AJC stands compared with other cardiology journals . She emphasized that AJC article downloads continue with an upward trend, that the ScienceDirect and HealthAdvance platforms were upgraded, and that paper to electronic migration continues. She pointed out that the redesign of the cover now allows the entire table of contents to fit on the cover, and I am very pleased by that move. She also presented the top cited articles published in the AJC in 2012. AJC article downloads in 2012 numbered 1,261,223, essentially no change from downloads in 2011. She provided a list of the top downloaded articles on the AJC Web site in 2012. Interesting (to me) is the fact that none of the top 10 concerned percutaneous coronary intervention studies. Grochowski also showed on-line usage by country and, the United States was first followed by Great Britain, Japan, India, Italy, Canada, and so on. Grochowski also discussed Elsevier’s clinical key, which is an on-line clinical reference product designed for clinicians in the hospital setting. It includes 500 journals, 800 books, and 1,000s of videos, images, clinical guidelines, point-of-care clinical summaries, patient education content, and clinical trial information. She also discussed developments in mobile access provided by ScienceDirect apps. The access through smart phones and iPad tablets provides search, retrieval of full text, and bookmark for later use. User log-in is required. She indicated that the average print circulation in 2012 was just under 24,000 and 97% of that was in the United States. Readership among cardiologists in the American Medical Association registry indicated that only 2 journals were ahead of the AJC in readership and they were the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Clinical Cardiology . She also described how Elsevier continues to market actively their journals. During my editorship, the AJC has been published by several different companies. In my view, Elsevier is the absolute tops and is truly an editorial content-oriented company. They want the best articles available in their journals.
- 2.
Introduction of new editorial board members: We welcomed Drs. Subhash Banerjee and H. Vernon Anderson.
- 3.
AJC board members reviewing the most manuscripts in 2012 ( Table 1 ): Jane Grochowski provided plaques to each of these 5 top reviewers, who during 2012, reviewed 8 or 9 manuscripts.
Table 1
Top American Journal of Cardiology Board reviewers in 2012
Antonio Abbate
Monty M. Bodenheimer
Marc Cohen
Johnson Francis
Donald C. Harrison
Charles E. Rackley
- 4.
Numbers of manuscripts submitted, withdrawn, accepted, and declined in 2012: A total of 2,720 manuscripts were received in 2012: 7 were withdrawn by the authors, 685 (25%) were accepted, and 2,028 (75%) were declined. Of the 910 submitted from the United States in 2012, 363 (40%) were accepted; of the 1,803 manuscripts submitted from non-United States countries, 322 (18%) were accepted.
- 5.
Numbers of editorial pages, types and topics of reports published in the AJC in 2012 ( Table 2 ): Of the 3,779 editorial pages published, 3,605 were used for articles and an additional 52 for Readers’ Comments, such that 96% of the editorial pages published in 2012 were used for publication of manuscripts. Of the 597 articles published, 557 (93%) involved multiple patients and 5 (1%), single patients. Thirteen reviews, 7 editorials, 2 Editor’s Roundtables, and 4 From-the-Editor columns were published in 2012. The topics of the articles published in 2012 are also listed in Table 2 .
- 6.
Numbers of manuscripts submitted and published in the AJC, 1983 through 2012 ( Table 3 ): In 1983, the first full year of the present editorship, 1,234 manuscripts were submitted and 643 were accepted. In 2012, a total of 2,713 were submitted and 685 were accepted. During these 30 full years of the present editorship, a total of 63,679 manuscripts were submitted and 20,856 (33%) were accepted. The acceptance rate has remained the same in recent years despite the publisher providing more editorial pages. The AJC publishes more tables and figures than other cardiology journals and if we were to decrease that number, as some other journals have done, we would be publishing more manuscripts, but I favor publication of multiple tables and figures. Our acceptance rate would be lower if submitted manuscripts were not shortened considerably before acceptance.
Table 3
Numbers of manuscripts submitted and published in The American Journal of Cardiology (1983 to 2012)
Year
Number of Manuscripts Submitted
Number of Manuscripts Published or Accepted
Percentage Accepted
1983
1,234
643
52
1984
1,605
747
46
1985
1,707
645
38
1986
1,574
616
39
1987
1,525
695
46
1988
1,496
636
42
1989
1,740
699
40
1990
1,717
662
38
1991
1,615
680
42
1992
1,873
664
35
1993
1,997
619
31
1994
1,783
604
34
1995
1,844
668
36
1996
1,930
701
36
1997
1,898
768
40
1998
1,992
631
31
1999
2,170
703
32
2000
2,226
630
28
2001
2,068
682
33
2002
2,171
683
31
2003
2,190
783
36
2004
2,109
842
39
2005
2,661
984
37
2006
3,061
653
21
2007
3,184
710
22
2008
2,888
709
25
2009
2,864
728
25
2010
2,893
684
24
2011
2,951
702
24
2012
2,713
685
25
Total
63,679
20,856
33 
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