PNAS at volume 100

This year, we celebrate the 100th volume of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The first issue of PNAS, published January 15, 1915, announced the goals of the fledgling publication:

The Proceedings will … serve as a medium for the prompt publication of brief original papers by members of the Academy and other American investigators. Its aim will be to furnish a comprehensive survey of the more important results of … scientific research . . . . . The papers will, in general, be much shorter … than those published in journals devoted to special branches of science . . . . . The Proceedings will aim especially to secure fuller recognition of the advances made in the separate sciences by persons more directly interested in other sciences.

Astronomer George Hale, NAS foreign secretary and an early advocate of an Academy journal, envisioned PNAS as a proxy for weekly meetings like those of the British Royal Society and the Paris Academy. Although the widely scattered nature of the U.S. Academy's membership precluded frequent face-to-face gatherings, the journal could provide a venue for rapid communication of new findings. Academy members were thus invited to submit reports of their exciting work and to communicate the important work of other investigators.

Over the last 88 years, dramatic changes have occurred at PNAS. From a monthly publication dominated by the physical sciences and including fewer than 200 articles per year, the journal has evolved to daily online publication of over 3,000 articles per year, predominantly in the life sciences. In a happy departure from provincial practices of earlier years, papers are now accepted from all over the world, and approximately one-third now come from outside the United States. Yet PNAS has stayed true to many of its original aims. All papers must receive the endorsement of an Academy member, and papers are still relatively short and intended for a wide scientific audience.

As the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences, a fundamental aim of PNAS is the promotion of openness and wide dissemination of scientific knowledge. From the beginning, PNAS favored a generous policy of journal distribution and placed special emphasis on dissemination outside the United States. For many years, free print issues were distributed to foreign universities, learned societies, and scientific organizations, as well as to select libraries in the United States and the media.

PNAS continues to take a leadership role in making content freely available. In January of 1997, PNAS was among the first scientific journals to begin publishing online, and in January of 2000, we began making access to back issues free online. Articles can be downloaded at no cost just 6 months after publication. PNAS digitized articles back to 1990, and granted permission to JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization, to digitize volumes all the way back to the first issue in 1915. Thus, all PNAS articles are readily available on the Internet.

Operating on a strictly break-even financial basis, PNAS has deliberately kept down the cost of subscriptions necessary for access to articles published within the most recent 6 months. PNAS was a charter participant in PubMed Central, an online repository of primary research reports sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and freely available to the public. In the continuing effort to expand distribution channels, PNAS recently signed an agreement to participate in one of the well established physics search engines (SPIN) as well as a Virtual Journal series, cosponsored by the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics, where readers see all the articles published by participating publishers in their specific discipline.

Beyond the pages of the journal, PNAS has driven the development of policy on public deposition of high-resolution structural coordinates. In the past, scientists were allowed up to a year after publication to deposit. PNAS was one of the first major journals to demand that authors ensure that this data is publicly accessible immediately upon publication. This is now the policy of nearly all journals. PNAS has always required authors to deposit nucleotide sequences upon publication in a public database such as GenBank.

Another example of our commitment to free and open scientific exchange is the liberal PNAS policy on prior publication. The policy states that a preprint, an oral presentation, or a summary of work presented in a scientific review or the popular press does not constitute prior publication. Our guiding principle is that journals should interfere minimally in such exchanges; authors themselves should dictate the dissemination of their own work.

Now that online publication has breached the time and distance barriers that once impeded international scientific communication, PNAS has shifted focus to economic barriers. Recognizing that many countries with struggling economies cannot afford the cost of journal subscriptions, this past year PNAS granted 81 developing countries free and immediate online access. In the coming years, PNAS expects to offer free access or substantially reduced subscription rates to even more countries. The goal is the open dissemination of science to those who can least afford access.

Online publication enhances another aim of PNAS, that of prompt publication. The progression to daily online publication, which occurred in June of 2002, now allows articles to be published within mere weeks of acceptance. At the same time that online publication speeds the delivery of information, it also increases the value of PNAS as a rich resource for datamining. Extended data tables and multimedia supporting information that could not be contained within the pages of a brief article are now readily available on the PNAS web site. Customized “e-TOCs” can be designed to alert readers when articles matching specified criteria are published, and referential links between PNAS articles, as well as articles from dozens of other journals, can be followed with the click of a mouse.

Not only has PNAS sought to reach an ever-widening audience, but the journal has also opened the door to submissions worldwide. Since 1996, authors have been invited to submit papers directly to the journal, without first obtaining an Academy member's agreement to communicate the paper to PNAS. The Editorial Board selects an Academy member to oversee peer review of the manuscript, and final acceptance is contingent on endorsement of the referees, the member-editor, and the Editorial Board. Directly submitted manuscripts now account for 80% of total submissions and more than 40% of papers published in PNAS. To accommodate the influx, the PNAS Editorial Board has expanded to include expertise in all areas of science. Much thanks is due to the 102 Board members, the hundreds of member-editors, and the countless expert referees who volunteer their services in the advancement of science.

As editorial standards continued to rise, PNAS introduced a new Commentary section of the journal to highlight the most exemplary research articles in each issue. Concurrent with volume 100, PNAS has updated the design of the print journal to draw more attention to Commentaries, Special Features, Perspectives, and Editorials. The new look also makes the print journal easier to navigate and more lively. The back cover features the traditional Academy seal that has graced PNAS covers since 1915.

It is impossible to imagine what changes the next 100 volumes will bring, but some near-term trends are clear. In an effort to achieve more balance, PNAS has been actively recruiting articles from fields outside of biology. Last year such article submissions doubled and surely will continue to represent an increasing proportion of the journal. Online publication dominates more each year and now the online edition of PNAS is certainly the journal of record. Although both forms of the journal, print and online, have their merit, PNAS may someday become a paperless journal. The concept of print subscriptions as the primary method of distribution of research results is already dated. Site licenses based primarily on online usage seem likely to replace print subscriptions as the primary source of income for journals. Some recently established journals eschew paid subscriptions altogether, with the costs of publication borne primarily by authors. Whatever the future, PNAS will continue to serve science by publishing exemplary research, each paper personally approved by an Academy member, and by promoting unfettered, worldwide access to scientific knowledge.

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February 4, 2003

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January 15, 1915

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January 15, 1993

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January 3, 1995

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December 21, 1999