The visibility of CJS

Roger G. Keith, MD, FRCSC
Coeditor

Canadian Journal of Surgery 1996; 39: 92

Visibility of a medical journal does not necessarily correlate with circulation numbers or the colour of its jacket. Until recently, the publication of scientific papers that met the standards established by indexing services was what prevented journals from being lost in the repository for tired trees. Publishers sought to achieve the listing of journals in such indexing services as Medicus Index of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) by meeting standard criteria related to such factors as format, peer review, contents pages, structure of abstracts and references.

Canadian Journal of Surgery (CJS) has been recognized by the NLM since the early 1960s. This achievement benefits the journal's contributing authors through international listings, citation referencing and expo- sure to information retrieval systems. Also, computerized indexing services such as MEDLINE increase the database of scientific papers, thereby expanding their visibility.

The viability of medical journals today is directly related to advertising revenue. High-quality journals could be usurped in the marketplace by publications with large circulation numbers that have eased their criteria for scientific papers. The coeditors of the CJS will endeavour to maintain visibility of this journal, so deservedly achieved over the past decades.

| CJS: Apr. 1996 |

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