On the road to Philadelphia, the joy of being indexed, and publication cloning: reflections of a past Editor-in-Chief

Abstract

The Geological Quarterly has come a long way since the first issue was published in 1957 under the Polish title Kwartalnik Geologiczny. From a local bulletin publishing studies of the Polish Geological Institute it has became an international journal, indexed since 2003 by the Institute for Scientific Information. The impact factor for 2006 was 0.846, a considerable increase (IF2005 -- 0.325) representing upgrading in the "Geology"category to 22nd position among 36 journals ranked. Despite the growing significance of regional geoscientific journals, the Geological Quarterly will face new challenges in coming years due to competition from other periodicals, including those from Central and Eastern Europe. The global tendency of limiting the paper issues of journals in favour of electronic versions will enforce changes in editing and distribution. Better rankings of the journal lead to a growing submission rate, associated with increased risk of dealing with manuscripts including duplicated material.