Dear Reader, This is the first mid-year newsletter of our recently introduced News in a Nutshell communication, with which we would like to keep you updated on the latest development of Respiration. The content of each letter will vary and concentrate on the most important newsworthy developments. Print Volume: In 2008 we increased the number of issues from six in one volume to eight in two volumes of four each per year. As we continue to receive more articles of increasing quality each year it has been decided to go over to monthly issues, i.e. 2 volumes of 6 issues each per year as of 2010. This will finally allow us to print accepted articles more quickly, which means the time between the appearance of an article in electronic form (epub first) and the publication of the printed version will be reduced to less than 3 months. As quality is our first priority we will, however, only marginally increase the number of articles printed per year, currently standing at 121. Impact Factor: The 2008 IF stands at 1.985, slightly up from the previous one at 1.931. Although this latest increase is small we are happy with the fact that for the last 6 years there has been a continuous increase in the IF each year. We should thus be able to break the ‘magic’ threshold of 2 shortly. The latest Immediacy Index looks promising at 0.603 (articles cited/articles published in 2008). It is the clear vision of the editorial team to further increase the quality of Respiration quickly to become one of the leading journals in respiratory medicine. Scope of Respiration: The journal will continue to accept a broad range of articles pertaining to all areas of thoracic medicine. There has been a spontaneous trend of increased submissions in sleep medicine and pediatric papers, which we welcome. We thus had to appoint two additional associate editors, Prof. W.J. Randerath, Solingen, Germany, for sleep medicine and intensive care, and Prof. E. Eber, Graz, Austria, for pediatric pulmonology. Both are well known to us given their outstanding previous commitment to the journal, and they have enthusiastically accepted their new roles. We would like, however, to make a concerted effort to also increase the journal’s impact in the field of thoracic oncology, an area which enjoys rapid growth in respiratory medicine and so far has been underrepresented in Respiration. This field will be ideally complemented by papers published in our dedicated section on Interventional Pulmonology, which often deal with the management – both diagnostic as well as therapeutic – of chest malignancies. Enjoy your holidays! With kind regards, C.T. Bolliger Editor-in-Chief P.S. Have you had a look yet at Clinical Chest Ultrasound, the latest volume in the book series Progress in Respiratory Research? It presents the state of the art in chest ultrasonography in routine and emergency procedures. The large number of excellent illustrations and the compact text provide concise and easy-to-assimilate information, supplemented by 51 online videos. Check it out!   © S. Karger AG - Medical and Scientific Publishers Allschwilerstrasse 10, P.O. Box, CH-4009 Basel (Switzerland) Tel. +41 61 306 1200, Fax +41 61 306 1234, respiration-news@karger.ch. Please read the Karger Privacy Policy. If you have received this email by mistake, click here and we will take you off this mailing list.