Digitized: Canadian Journal of Chemistry back issues are now on-line.

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As a publishing house, NRC Press fully recognizes that the advent of electronic back issues and Web access has revolutionized the process of research, and that the chemistry community in particular is a strong advocate of this format for information delivery and retrieval. The ease of access allows users to find relevant mate rial quickly and efficiently. Researchers can build on historical information and integrate legacy content into their papers through reference linking, and libraries can guarantee simultaneous access to multiple users while reducing the storage required for their collections. Because the CJC has such a strong citation half-life (more than ten years), it was a prime candidate to join the ranks of the digitized journals.

The CJC has a long, proud history. In fact, this year CJC is celebrating 55 years of publishing under its present title. Originally founded in 1929, the Canadian Journal of Research branched off in 1944 to form the rudiments of what would eventually become the Canadian Journals of Physics, Chemistry, Botany, and Zoology. The modern title that we now recognize as the CJC emerged in 1951 from the Canadian Journal of Research, Section B, Chemical Sciences. The digitization of the back issues began with the 1951 volume, the birthdate of CJC.

The move to digital archives began in earnest last year at NRC where all of the binding was removed from the hard bound copies and each paper was scanned to PDF format. This was the easy part of the process. A contract was then awarded to an outside company to input all of the metadata information (title, authors, abstract, citation, etc.), which was formatted meticulously to go into a database and onto a Web site at pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/cgi-bin/rp/rp2_vols_e?cjc.

Digital object identifiers (DOIs) were retroactively assigned to each paper, and the numbers were registered with CrossRef, an international publisher's organization that enables reference linking among publishers' sites. With a single click, researchers will be able link from a reference in another publisher's journal to an article in the CJC backfiles.

The PDF files were then processed further to enable the functionality associated with Adobe Acrobat software. For example, the full-text articles are now searchable using Acrobat Reader. In addition, once the files were complete, Google crawled the site and indexed the full-text CIC backfiles. Though this search engine is less accurate, Google has really opened up this content to the world. We are now working with Google Scholar, Google's academic search product, to enhance the precision of their search engine when accessing the CJC.

Recognizing that the Chemical Abstracts Services' Scifinder Scholar service is a critical tool for the chemistry community, NRC has also been working closely with the American Chemical Society (ACS) to improve currency and access. We are now automatically providing metadata issue by issue to ACS for them to load on their various services. This automatic process replaces a previous manual approach and has decreased the time to access by approximately two months. We are also working with ACS to reduce the number of steps in moving from a Chemical Abstracts reference, through Chemport to our actual article.

To further improve currency through Scifinder Scholar, we are working with the CSC executive in approaching ACS to allow an article by article loading of CJC content. Rather than closing the issue and then sending all articles off to ACS, we would send each article to ACS when its available on the CJC Web site. Again, this would make the research available more quickly through Scifinder Scholar. This is not so much a technical issue as a policy issue with ACS.

Throughout its publishing history, NRC has always enjoyed a close relationship with the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC). This relationship was officially recognized in 2004 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the NRC and the CSC. This year, R. Stan Brown, FCIC, of Queen's University joined the editorial board of the CJC as the society representative, while CJC senior editor Robert H. Lipson, MCIC, reciprocated by representing the journal interests at the CSC board meeting.

This enabled a welcome exchange of ideas and perspectives designed to strengthen the bond between the two organizations. In recognition of the relationship between the NRC and the CSC, and in acknowledgement of the financial and moral support of the society, all CIC members have free access to the back issues through a special username/password.

After a year dedicated to building on the past, NRC Research Press is now looking toward the future. In the coming year, we will see a transition to full-text HTML for the CJC, with internal navigational links and reference linking. The HTML product will be built on a new XML workflow designed to maximize the number of potential products. It will make the production process more efficient, and guarantee a more robust archive. The new XML production platform will enhance the currency and accessibility of CJC content to the world.

By the new year, the NRC Research Press will also begin to roll out the first phases of a new Web site design for its journals. Over the next year, we will completely rebuild the site and create a more functional and flexible host for the CJC.

Publishing is entering an exciting new era built upon a firm base of excellent peer-reviewed articles and encompassing all of the ease of access, complexity of presentation, and linking and searching capabilities afforded through new technologies. NRC Research Press, as Canada's largest publisher of scientific and technical information, is constantly striving to improve its products and respond to the needs of its clients. We gratefully acknowledge all the authors, reviewers, editors, and readers who have contributed to its success in the past, and look forward to working with the national scientific community to produce the highest quality product that all will take pride in and continue to support.

Robert H. Lipson, MCIC, is senior editor of the Canadian Journal of Chemistry, a professor of chemistry at The University of Western Ontario, and director of the Western Institute for Nanomaterials Sciences (WINS). His research interests include laser spectroscopy, optical lithography for photonics applications, and technique development in mass spectrometry.