Reflections on the flood of literature

Only TiBS insiders are aware that the first issue of TiBS was a ‘zero issue’, published in October 1975, to promote the revolutionary new magazine that was to be launched in January 1976. As the first Editor-in-Chief, I wrote the editorial in this zero issue, using the same title as now and explaining how TiBS would enable readers to keep up with the burgeoning literature, by having experts summarize recent progress in the form of compact reviews of cutting-edge topics, in a monthly magazine. That was only 25 years ago. Yet, at the time, it was a novel idea that has now been cloned many times over by Elsevier and other publishers, and so I could now have chosen to write about ‘Reflections on the flood of review journals’.The original scope and contents of TiBS were derived from a mixture of the ideas brought to the table by me, as the General Secretary of the IUB (International Union of Biochemistry, later to become ‘and Molecular Biology’ – IUBMB), and Elsevier. We had each learned that the other was toying with similar thoughts. IUB had in mind a kind of ‘Nature for biochemists’ – news, reviews and original communications. Elsevier was considering a newspaper, not publishing original material but otherwise sounding like the IUB proposal. We agreed to proceed on this basis. The original copies of TiBS were, in fact, produced with newsprint, so that they discolored accordingly.It was to be called TiB, for Trends in Biochemistry. My counterpart at Elsevier, Jack Franklin, suggested that TiBS would trip more easily off the tongue, but hesitated because it sounded to him like FEBS, the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, for which Elsevier publishes FEBS Letters. Would FEBS be concerned? I told Jack that as it was me who had coined the name FEBS, against a certain amount of opposition, I did not see that FEBS would give us a hard time. And so TiBS was born.The innovation proved to be a huge success, even though there were times when the prospects were not good. Franklin told me that there was so much doubt within Elsevier that, had it not been for the enthusiasm on the side of the IUB, TiBS might not have seen the light of day. On the side of the IUB, it was also not altogether plain sailing. I reported our intentions when I attended a meeting of the Council of the American Society of Biological Chemists in April 1975. For my pains I was upbraided by the Society's President, whose censored comment was: ‘You asterisk Whelan! We don't want another journal!’ (I was known for having helped found the European Journal of Biochemistry and FEBS Letters.) Similarly, when the first issue of TiBS appeared, I was again castigated, this time by a Swiss biochemist who told me that I had sold my soul to Elsevier.The first three years of TiBS were scary. How did we get into this predicament? Two reasons: one was that it was an experiment. Could we recruit Editors who would be persuaded of the concept and would authors write the novel, concise reviews we had in mind? And for a journal that was new? Yet another new journal? Was there a niche for it? The first problem was exacerbated by the second: the original Editor-in-Chief withdrew in February 1975, and we had to decide whether to postpone the launch by one year. As the General Secretary of the IUB, with already too many things to do, I was the reluctant replacement. Despite the time we had lost, the IUB was all for sticking to the January 1976 launch date. Elsevier agreed, so I set about recruiting an eight-member Editorial Board. I was encouraged by the willingness displayed and, together, we began to solicit review articles in short order, trying to make up for lost time.Elsevier, via the Staff Editor Joan Morgan, provided the news sections of TiBS and never gave me any concern about the supply of copy or cartoons, an appreciated feature. On my side, being in charge of providing the reviews, I was obliged to put heavy pressure on the distinguished group of Editors who were helping me. There was no email or fax. Communication was all by telephone at odd hours to accommodateEurope and Asia. I wrote them telegram-style circulars in 1-cm-high letters, appealing for help. Friends and acquaintances were called upon and responded generously. Editors themselves wrote reviews, which encouraged the hesitant. When copy did not arrive for the ‘50 Years Ago’ column, I would have to drop everything and write one myself.In nice gestures of solidarity, John Maddox, in between stints as Editor of Nature, wrote the first news feature we published, whereas Dan Koshland, the Editor of Science, wrote the first review. I do not think we ever missed a deadline, but it was always a near thing. By mid-1978, I even had to ask the Editors to slow down. We had a year's supply of reviews in the pipeline. That was important, because it allowed us some flexibility in settling on a mix of contents for any one issue, a luxury we had not enjoyed before. At that point I prevailed on John Tooze, who had shown a liking for TiBS, to relieve me after the first four years (1975–1978). He did so and he and his successors have taken TiBS onwards and upwards.The readers were unaware of the hand-to-mouth nature of the initial supply of copy, but they certainly showed their interest. By the time TiBS was six months old, the circulation had already reached 3000, a selling point when it came to buttonholing potential authors.Our Union is proud to have been involved with this wholly necessary publishing innovation, one that, very importantly, attracted many subscriptions by individual scientists. On the side of the IUB, the creation of TiBS had been urged by the previous General Secretary and later President, Harland G. Wood, who saw, following the example of the FEBS journals, that TiBS would be a service to science, represent the desirable end of scientists publishing for scientists, raise the visibility of the IUB, and bring a royalty income to help expand the Union's activities. It has done all those things and, as far as visibility is concerned, TiBS has a higher profile in the world at large than does the IUBMB.That TiBS has succeeded, is because of the excellent team work between Elsevier, its staff and the IUB(MB) and its Editors. It was an initial band of IUB Editors, Joan Morgan and the Elsevier publishing staff, led by Jack Franklin, that laid the grounds for success, which, once it became evident, has continued to attract biochemists and molecular biologists of the highest caliber from around the world to write for TiBS, and to staff its Editorial Board.The contents of TiBS evolved continuously over the years. Relatively new readers should look at the original format and contents to see how different it was. Or was it? Over the years there has been a ceaseless creativity that makes one look forward, each month, to the arrival of TiBS. In the early days, a reader once told me that the reason he liked TiBS so much was because the variety of the contents meant that in every issue there was at least one article that represented compulsive reading for him. We had evidently succeeded, as much by luck as good judgment, in this experiment in publishing.