With this first 2009 Annals of Hepatology volume, we are celebrating eight years of continuous publication. I would like to share with the readers of this Journal some thoughts, first I must say that I am really enjoying to work as an editor, I can interact and have a priceless feedback with colleagues from different countries around the world and therefore both, my knowledge and my personal relationship have increased in a very successful way. Second, it has been a huge challenge for the Editorial Board and of course for me to develop a scientific journal such as Annals of Hepatology in a Latin American country and facing an economic crisis. It was not easy for us specially in the beginning.
Now, after seven years of experience we have identified some important issues necessary to enhance the quality of Annals of Hepatology, some of them include publishing regularity and improving the peer-review process by identifying experienced reviewers.
Our journal has been included in the Science Citation Index Expanded and we are anxiously waiting for the journal’s impact factor, which will allow us to compare Annals of Hepatology with other journals. However, at this time, I would like to show you another measure of performance. The online Journal is now averaging more than 330,160 hits a year (2008) as compared with 32,237 hits in 2002, (Figure 1). The number of hits is an important measure of performance, because authors submitting a manuscript want the widest display for their work. We also have compared the number of original articles between 2002 and 2008, (Figure 2), and the number of author countries respectively (Figure 3). As you can see there is a notorious increase in the performance as well as in the geographic interest for Annals of Hepatology.
There is still a long way to walk, nevertheless as time goes by I hope we will get the experience and strength needed to improve Annals of Hepatology and hopefully write another comment like this in ten or more years.
