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Abstract/Summary
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It is 39 years since Archiv für Molluskenkunde last appeared without listing Ronald Janssen as an editor and 16 years since Eike Neubert became involved as copy editor. The changes to the journal in that time have been immense, including the A4 format, the take-over of English, and colour printing to a standard that we have heard is the envy of our rivals. An impact factor above 1 is also a remarkable achievement for a journal dominated by taxonomic studies. Well done, and very many thanks to you both! Over this period, our publisher, the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, has also evolved considerably and is now not just one museum but several. Thus, as Ronald Janssen approached retirement, three malacologists from the Senckenberg museums in Dresden and Görlitz were already in place to be trained up and now to take over. We share this job equally, so none of us is chief editor. We hope to be joined by whoever is appointed as the new curator in Frankfurt. The change of regime prompted us to codify the formatting rules of the journal with a more detailed set of Instructions for Authors, which in turn led us to consider and implement changes to the style. In part we have tried to match more closely the style of other Senckenberg journals, although we have retained the double-line header above the titles to echo a feature present since 1948. The new style is also somewhat more compact, allowing us to print more papers per issue. That may become important because this is the biggest single issue ever, with 9 articles and 183 pages of text. The size is perhaps partly a reflection of the impact factor of the journal attracting more high-quality submissions, but also having 3 editors may have facilitated a faster processing of manuscripts. We cannot imagine how Ronald managed alone because we are exhausted! We would like also to take the opportunity to introduce and thank our new copy editor and technical editor, Robert Forsyth. He brings to these roles not only his knowledge of English as a native speaker and his professional training and experience in publishing but also a malacological knowledge that is at least the match of any of ours. We have so often relied on his advice, judgement and initiative that he fully deserves equal billing with the rest of the editorial team. We hope that you find much of interest in this issue. If you do, it is mostly down to the authors of course, not us, but the best sign of your appreciation would be please to keep up the flow of submissions!
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