State of the Archives: Title and subTitle BreakFulfilling Our MissionState of the Archives: Fulfilling Our Mission

In 2004, we assumed the mantle of leadership for the Archives of Dermatology, a journal that has been in continuous publication since 1882. Over the past 5 years, we have continued the Archives leadership role in the development of dermatological journal editorial policy, in the publication of clinically relevant advances, and in the education of dermatologists, other health care professionals, and patients and their relatives and friends. As part of theJAMA and Archives family of 10 journals, we are supported by and contribute to each other and to the international community of medical editors. The editorial concerns are discussed with our editorial board, and policy is created. This process brought into being clinical trial registration,¹ standards for the technical qualities for clinical images,² disclosure of financial relationships,³ systematic reviews with grading recommendations and evidence quality,⁴ and requirement for ethics committee or institutional review board review of research studies submitted for consideration of publication.⁵

Each policy is implemented by answering authors' concerns to help them understand what they need to do. It takes almost 2 years before most of the 1400 annual submissions successfully pass our initial manuscript screening process without being returned to the author for failure to comply with a policy. Part of the difficulty for authors is the lack of uniformity among dermatology journals about the policies that we have established. Currently, authors report similar information about financial relationships in different formats to different journals. A step forward was recently taken when the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors introduced a new disclosure form that will simplify submission of manuscripts when it is adopted by all journals.⁶

Our editorial policies give the public access to dermatologic research findings, improve the transparency of financial conflicts of interest by those engaging in research, and enhance the protection of research subjects and use of their images. Physicians and the public responded to our editorial policies with renewed interest in the clinical advancements reported in the Archives. During the past several years, online readership of articles published in the Archives was astounding. In 2009, 1 507 089 abstracts and 1 176 161 full-text articles were read online, and 850 640 PDFs were downloaded. Institutional site licenses have moved the medical library out of the stacks and onto the Internet. Institutional site licenses represent vastly different numbers of users depending on the institution. For example, in the United Kingdom, the National Health Service provides access to the entire publicly funded health care system of approximately 873 000 physicians. In Brazil, the institutional licenses include a consortium of 115 publicly funded universities. By participating in Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) of the World Health Organization, access to the Archives expanded to all continents (Figure 1). Local, not-for-profit institutions in countries may register for access through HINARI based on gross national income (GNI) per capita (World Bank figures). Institutions in countries with GNI per capita below $1250 are eligible for free access, and those in countries with GNI per capita of $1250 to $3500 pay a fee of $1000 per year per institution. Within days of posting publications on the Web, we receive letters to the editor from all over the world (Figure 2). Search engines such as Google, Bing, and PubMed make the publications available to all.

The editorial board, international advisory committee, and editors are delighted to fulfill our mission of improving the understanding of the outcome of treatment or the means by which the burden of dermatologic disease can be measured and reduced to promote the health of patients with skin disease.

Correspondence: Dr Robinson, Department of Dermatology, Northwestern University School of Medicine, 132 E Delaware Pl, No. 5806, Chicago, IL 60611 (archdermatol@jama-archives.org).