A year of celebration

In 2008 we celebrated the 10th year of publication of CrystEngComm, and it was wonderful to be able to include so many members of the crystal engineering community in our celebrations. These included a sponsored speakers' lunch at the XXI Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography in Osaka, Japan. It was good to see so many of our CrystEngComm friends at this lunch! A second CrystEngComm sponsored lunch was held at the XIX Midwest Organic Solid State Symposium in June 2008, hosted by the CrystEngComm Regional Associate Editor for the Americas, Prof. Christer Aakeröy. We also supported a number of up and coming researchers in 2008, with the award of 13 CrystEngComm poster prizes at international conferences throughout the year.

We also celebrated the year with the appointment of two additional Regional Associate Editors. Prof. Susumu Kitagawa (Kyoto, Japan) joined the Editorial Board as the Regional Associate Editor for Japan, while Prof. Song Gao (Beijing, China) became the Regional Associate Editor for China. We very much look forward to working with all three Regional Associate Editors, who are available to answer any questions you might have about CrystEngComm.

During the summer of 2008, we celebrated the publication of the journal's impact factor (3.468) and immediacy index. For the first time, CrystEngComm's immediacy index was the highest for a crystal engineering journal (0.614), showing that articles that are published in CrystEngComm receive on average more citations in the first year of publication than other crystal engineering journals.

RSC Publishing is committed to providing a world-class publishing service and global visibility to its authors and with the number of citations increasing, immediacy and impact factors rising it is clear to see that CrystEngComm and RSC Publishing are recognised by researchers throughout the world as a key resource to publish and read the very best research.

We also celebrated the huge increase in size of the journal, with 2008 being the biggest year ever for CrystEngComm, as indicated in the graph below. This growth is not limited to CrystEngComm. RSC Publishing is working with more authors than ever before—2008 saw the number of authors published in RSC journals increase by 30%. Meanwhile titles from across the collection recorded impressive rises in impact factors, and the latest immediacy indices confirm the relevance and topicality of research published by the RSC.

Fig. 1 Number of published articles in CrystEngComm.

Any finally, we finished off the year of celebration with the publication of our ‘Birthday Issue’, containing 31 articles written by members of the journal's Editorial and Advisory Boards. Keep a look out for two great theme issues scheduled for publication next year, on Mechanochemistry and co-crystals (Guest Editors: Professor Ashwini Nangia and Dr Stuart James) and Crystal engineering in molecular magnetism (Guest Editors: Professor Concepció Rovira and Jaume Veciana).

While 2008 was a year of celebration for CrystEngComm, there is much happening in 2009 also worth celebrating. During 2009 we will release a new version of ReSourCe, our system for online manuscript submission and peer review (http://www.rsc.org/resource). Already popular with authors and referees, we've listened to your feedback and made further improvements to our service. We're keen to build on your experience of ReSourCe, so if you would like to help us shape the next release by taking part in beta-testing or by supplying your comments and suggestions please contact E-mail: resourcesupport@rsc.org

Our journal portfolio has expanded with the launch of three new journals. Energy & Environmental Science, launched in July 2008, publishes research from all aspects of the chemical sciences relating to energy conversion and storage, alternative fuel technologies and environmental science. http://www.rsc.org/eesMetallomics: Integrated biometal science covers the research fields related to metals in biological, environmental and clinical systems. http://www.rsc.org/metallomicsIntegrative Biology: Quantitative biosciences from nano to macro is a unique, interdisciplinary journal covering quantitative multi-scale biology using enabling technologies and tools to exploit the convergence of biology with physics, chemistry, engineering, imaging and informatics. http://www.rsc.org/ibiology The current issue of all three journals is freely available online. Free online institutional access to all 2009 content is available for registered users—full details are on the web site.

We know that it can be difficult to keep track of online resources that are available to you. So, we've introduced a special web page to help you find out exactly what RSC content you can access. This new page is called Your RSC Subscriptions (http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/your_access.asp) and it lists all products for which your organisation has a current subscription, plus other content which may be available to you, such as the RSC Journals Archive and the RSC eBook collection.

You can also find out about RSC content that is available free, including: research articles that are free for a limited time; news articles in magazines; and free chapters from the RSC eBook Collection. Visit http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/freeRSCcontent.asp

In 2009, the theme for RSC public engagement activities will be food; looking at all aspects of the supply chain from field to fork and eventually to waste disposal and recycling. Planned activities include the launch of a major reports into securing a sustainable food supply; the publication of a new edition of the ground-breaking book Kitchen Chemistry; lectures and events at the new Chemistry Centre at Burlington House—the world's foremost venue for showcasing chemistry; and Chemistry Week 2009 (7–15 November), when practising scientists and science teachers will engage in a week-long festival for the chemical sciences. Please get in touch with us (E-mail: food@rsc.org) if you would like to be involved.

The RSC eBook Collection has become a world-class electronic resource with licenses being signed to leading institutions across the globe. New content continues to be uploaded regularly and this comprehensive resource now includes over 800 quality titles. Electronic book publications are uploaded within days of print publication, effortlessly disseminating extensive, high-quality, scientific content direct to scientists, libraries, students, teachers and researchers around the world. Please visit http://www.rsc.org/eBooks for further information or to visit the RSC eBook Collection.

Over 80 new print books will be published in 2009 as our list continues to grow in size and importance in the international market. Keep up-to-date with all the latest cutting edge titles being published by the RSC by visiting http://www.rsc.org/ej_alert and subscribing to our eAlerts. We send regular information on discount offers, print books and new electronic content throughout the year.

CrystEngComm is lucky to have the enthusiastic backing of a supportive community and we're excited to offer our readers new ways to engage with our journal on the wider web.

CrystEngCommunity is a home for those interested in crystal engineering on the web. The site features, amongst other things, news features, attractive wallpaper downloads, and CrystEngSelects, a weekly round-up of crystal engineering articles published in all RSC journals.

Facebook users can visit our official Facebook page.¹ By becoming a member of this group on Facebook you can keep up to date with the latest articles published online, and view and share relevant videos, images, events and news. You can also use the page to find out about upcoming events where you can meet the editors or contribute to a discussion and, of course, connect with fellow members.

If you want to keep up to date with crystal engineering terminology, take a look at the CrystEngWiki, and if there is a term you feel should be defined here, just create an entry yourself!²

You can keep up to date with the latest research appearing in CrystEngComm by adding our Google gadgets to your desktop. We've got a great RSC journal gadget³ that delivers journal RSS feeds straight to your Google desktop and a journal search gadget⁴ that allows you to search articles appearing in RSC Journals directly from your desktop.

To find our more about how you can engage with CrystEngComm around the Web, bookmark the homepage at www.rsc.org/crystengcomm

We wish all our readers, authors and referees well for 2009!

Professor Neil Champness, Editorial Board Chair

Dr Jamie Humphrey, Editor

1 CrystEngComm official Facebook page:	http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid = 27939165018
2 CrystEngWiki:	http://prospect.rsc.org/wiki/rsc/index.php?title = Main_Page
3 RSC Journal RSS feeds Google gadget	http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/115321514350875010675/rsc_journals.xml&;source=imag
4 RSC Journals search Google gadget	http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/115321514350875010675/rsc_ajax_search.xml&;source=imag

---