The word “classic,” according to Webster’s Dictionary, has many connotations, all of them signifying something of the highest class: “of the highest quality or rank, having recognized and permanent value, of enduring interest and appeal…” All of these descriptors would apply aptly to the works and people featured in this special issue of Interface celebrating the scientific contributions of ECS members. The ECS Divisions were polled as to which paper of the most cited papers from the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) has had maximal impact on the technical activities of that particular group of scientists and engineers, and Division volunteers contributed commentaries on these selected articles. Also included in this issue is an “ECS Hall of Fame,” on the winners of the National Medal of Technology & Innovation who have had affiliations with ECS. Editor Krishnan Rajeshwar discussed the pros and cons of publication metrics in “Let the Citations Begin.”
Pennington Corner
What's New
In the first of his biannual columns for 2009, ECS Executive Director Roque Calvo wrote, “On February 21, 2009, I attended the dedication of Carril Court at Princeton University, to honor the great Hall-of-Fame basketball coach Peter Carril. He has been an influential force in my life, and to see him reluctantly accept this honor brings a rush of inspiration and awareness of the importance of the message in this column. The data suggest that ECS publications are at an all time high, but Coach Carril reminded me that (publication) metrics don’t address our higher mission or our responsibility as a steward of the science.
The publication metrics do indicate that ECS had a great year in 2008, and there are many people to thank for their hard work and commitment to doing things the right way. In the ECS vernacular, the right way means to insure the quality and reliability of the publications, as well as the broad distribution of the content. For a publisher in the digital age, satisfying these objectives is no small accomplishment and something often unappreciated or at least not well understood by scientists and engineers who are busy with their work.”
ECS Transactions Publishes 5,000th Paper! In March 2009, ECS Transactions (ECST) successfully published its 5,000th article, with issues from more than 15 regional and international conferences. For 2009 and beyond, ECST will begin to offer content alerts, including RSS feeds and table of contents alerts for new issues. ECST Editor John Weidner noted, “This achievement has been the result of the efforts of numerous symposium organizers, issue editors, Division leaders, and the ECST staff. This rapid dissemination of the technical content from our meetings is extremely important for the advancement of solid-state and electrochemical science and technology.”
Tech Highlights is a regular feature of Interface. Each issue contains summaries of about a half a dozen articles published in ECS journals. On the Web, click anywhere in a summary and you’ll be linked to the full-text version of the article for free reading.
Students have been very actively lately, garnering awards and initiating new activities, as reported in the pages of Interface. The ECS ETD, IE&EE, and PAED Divisions recently presented a number of best paper awards to student presenters in the 2008 PEMFC symposium (see page 12). The Atlanta Student Chapter at Georgia Tech held its first Student Poster event (see page 78); and the IE&EE Division awarded its 2009 Student Achievement Awards (see page 77).
