Editorial

This edition begins a new journey for me and as I approach my second decade of nursing, I am honoured to be taking over the helm as Editor of the AJoN.

Thank you Vicki for your guest editorial. Change is certainly continuous and this is also true in terms of journals and publishing.

Those of you who remember the early volumes will have seen many changes over the years. In my lifetime, I have seen technology develop and I often reflect on how we managed prior to smart phones and the internet.

With this in mind I honour the early journal editors, when articles were typed and sent back and forwards via post with hand written comments that needed to be addressed.

The internet and email has changed many things we do and whilst it is not always for the better it has certainly made this job of editor and my substantive role as an academic easier.

Now we can share articles electronically using email and platforms such as Research Gate. However, not so long ago this task was completed via posted request for reprints. Academics would have calling cards printed that they would send to authors requesting a copy of manuscripts and waiting patiently for the copy to be posted them. Now our poor library staff are pressured to find and deliver archived and obscure articles in hours, not the weeks or even months that this task once took.

We take the ability to serach the internet for granted at times and often forget that this is a relatively new technology. Access to literature is now often overwhelming and perhaps it was easier in the old days when you could not be criticised for not knowing what you didn’t have access to. However, like many of you I will take an electronic search engine any day over the hours I remember scanning microfiche cards.

To find an article we now head to the internet and simply serach. The internet has become an invaluable resource, it has opened up endless opportunities for our own research, be that to publish or just to find information.

This is a huge change from 20 years ago when an academic would refer to ‘Current Contents’, a weekly publication that would be 100s of printed pages that was organised by field (life sciences, physical sciences or humanities).

‘Current Contents’ was a paper data base/index, a compilation of the Tables of Contents of all the journals in the fields. From here researchers would spend hours reading and scanning for key words, reference numbers and citations. Then if you were really organised, these details were hand written on a card system. When I get frustrated with End Note I always try to take a deep breath and think of the alternatives.

With all these changes and the anticipated changes ahead I read and take on board Vicki’s advise. For me this is another rewarding challenge in my neuroscience journey and I look forward to this next stage.

Cheers and thank you for all your support and guidance Vicki.