最近和传统刊物打交道的机会越来越少了，偶尔打交道，也是不得已而为之。比如说，我的那篇关于HDE的文章本来是投给PRL的，打了一架，兴味索然，转投PLB。现在的被引用次数远远超过PRL的影响因子所需的（发表的三年之中的引用次数要不小于影响因子）。

在美国的时候，JHEP开张了，于是很多文章寄给这个当时基本只是电子形式的刊物。稍后JHEP也有纸媒了，被传统出版商收购了，但出版的宗旨不变，就是作者们自己为自己服务。

回国后，这些电子杂志太过新潮，只好又开始多投传统刊物。过了几年，理论所的同仁们开始重视JHEP，因为它的影响因子摆在那里。在理论所，JHEP仅排在PRL之后。经过几番强调之后，国内大部分同行有了共识。现在，JHEP的姊妹刊物JCAP也被大家重视了，这两年，JCAP的影响因子甚至超过了天体物理的主要刊物APJ。

对于研究凝聚态的同行们来说，PRL还是首选。对于研究粒子物理、场论弦论的人来说，PRL只是橱窗里的装饰，发表的文章既少，审稿又很变态，实在不是一个好选择。

最近，JHEP和JCAP又开始了一轮宣传，相信很多人收到了以下这封信，标题是Support JHEP and you support the interests of scientists：

Dear Colleague,

In the first half of 2006 our Journals have seen many important changes: a new instrumentation journal, JINST, has been launched, new scientific directors for JHEP and JCAP have been appointed to replace Hector Rubinstein, now Scientific Advisor to SISSA Medialab. We wish
to remind you of the basic differences between our not-for-profit Journals and those published by commercial publishing companies.

The policy of the SISSA-IOP J-Journals is the following:

- to maintain the philosophy that publication of research results must be fully controlled by scientists, so as to ensure the highest scientific quality;- to produce information efficiently at a reasonable cost, thereby minimizing the financial pressure on our libraries and grants.

We are convinced that it is unfair that publishing companies make huge profits exploiting the ingenuousness of scientists in the questions related with the publication of their own results in Scientific Journals. Although scientists voluntarily carry out all the publication-related work (starting with the actual writing of the paper to the peer-review), they are still requested to pay unwarranted and outrageous subscription fees by commercial publishing companies
for them to access these very journals as readers.

Here are some examples. The yearly subscription cost of our journals, which covers only necessary expenses unavoidably related with publication and marketing of all published scientific contributions, are the following:

JHEP: EUR 1,622
JCAP: EUR 1,174
JINST (free in 2006): 745 in 2007
(all institutional prices)

The sum of the subscriptions to Nuclear Physics B and Physics Letters B is more than fifteen times higher than that of JHEP (to which the combined NPB + PLB can be compared), i.e., 15,211 EUR (Institutional price) plus 10,301 EUR (Institutional price) = 25,512 EUR. In
Instrumentation, JINST’s main competitor, Nuclear Instruments and Methods A, charges as an annual subscription fee 12,191 EUR (Institutional price).

Exploiting this strategy, commercial publishing companies have managed to generate profits of the order of one billion euros a year (Elsevier), which are ultimately taken from research resources.

Besides being run and published entirely by electronic means, the other key features of our journals are:

1. The Editor-in-Charge is given full responsibility for acceptance or rejection of the paper. His word is final and cannot be questioned by the Editorial Office (on the other hand, authors can appeal against editorial decisions). This has proved to be very efficient in selecting papers of very high quality and consequently Thompson ISI’s impact factors for JCAP and JHEP are amongst the highest in physics (JINST started publication this year so it is not rated yet).
Please see the data appended below.

2. Large companies misuse the copyright assignment, forbidding authors to use their own material when they need to do so, e.g., for publishing collected reprints. They have done it in the past, based on non-scientific considerations. We do not. Indeed unlike those of commercial publishers our policies are never in conflict with scientific interests because science is our only
concern.

We very much rely on your support and we would appreciate it if you could contribute by conveying to colleagues the information above and encouraging those who have not yet done so to submit their results to our journals.

We do believe that there should not be any monopoly of publication. The existence of several journals (hopefully in the future all not-for-profit enterprises), protects the author against the possibility that if a mistake is made the paper cannot be published. Furthermore, we see no reason why large companies involved in media, newspapers and other matters should have such control of scientific research to which they contribute nothing.

Is it up to all of us, and up to you as an author in particular, to stop this unacceptable state of affairs.

Sincerely yours,

Marc Henneaux - Scientific Director
Hector Rubinstein - Scientific Advisor

IF data

(We are fully aware that Impact Factors are far from being absolute measures of quality and can be, for instance, influenced by fashion effects. IFs give only a partial indication. The data below are thus to be taken with a grain of salt)

Journal IF 2003 IF 2004 IF 2005

JHEP 6.854 6.503 5.944
Physical Review D 4.358 5.156 4.852
Nuclear Physiscs B 5.409 5.819 5.522
Physics Letter B 4.298 4.619 5.301
Euro Phy J C 6.162 3.209

JCAP 7.914 6.793
A & A 3.781 3.694 4.223
Class and Quant Grav 2.107 2.941 2.938
Astrophysical Journal 6.187 6.237 6.308
inter J Mod Phys D 1.507 1.500 1.225

JCAP的Scientific Director Viatcheslav Mukhanov寄出了内容几乎一样的信。JHEP系列刊物用“有个盈盈骑马过，薄妆浅黛亦风流”来形容一点也不过分。但他们的宣传攻势，却不能说是见人羞涩却回头。

估计这一轮攻势之后，这些刊物的影响因子将会提高。

附

浣溪沙

一半残阳下小楼，朱帘斜控软金钩。倚栏无绪不能愁。
有个盈盈骑马过，薄妆浅黛亦风流。见人羞涩却回头。