CVJ readership survey

When our readers speak The CVJ listens. At its March meeting, the Editorial Committee of the CVMA discussed the responses of readers to the recent CVJ readership survey and asked that I provide some comments on behalf of the Committee. First, we are grateful to the many individuals who took the time to answer the questions and to provide valuable suggestions and comments. We depend on your help to obtain the readers’ perspectives and to determine issues that you wish to have addressed.

One of the issues that you have identified is online publication of The CVJ. Increasingly, journals are going to online publication to either supplement or replace the printed format. As an example, beginning in January of this year, The Veterinary Record began publishing extended abstracts of scientific papers, with the full articles available online only. This approach is responsive to the needs of readers who prefer or restrict themselves to the printed word as well as to those who prefer electronic access. These changes also allow for more rapid publication of accepted papers.

Interestingly, the CVJ survey indicates that 65% of readers visit the journals section of the CVMA Web site and we expect this percentage would be higher if the printed form of the journal was not available. The CVJ is presently available online to the public at PubMed Central (PMC) 6 months after it becomes available to CVMA members and other subscribers. Changing to an online format in which all or a part of the journal is available at the time of publication requires consideration of many issues, including advertising revenue, advertising format, and preserving exclusive access to subscribers. The Editorial Committee is reviewing these issues and is prepared to implement online publishing when these matters and their impact have been fully investigated. Consistent with our goal of making information available in formats that meet the needs of our subscribers, we plan to publish online pdfs of articles and advertisements exclusively for members in the near future.

The top 5 issues identified in the survey (The CVJ, April 2011, 368–369) all relate to content. Readers would like to see more practice-oriented articles. So would the CVJ. We have repeatedly requested practitioners to help us address this matter and we are grateful that a number of practitioners have written to share practice tips. However, we need more, and once again we appeal to practitioners to send us articles for a Practitioners Corner in The CVJ. Sixty-six of the respondents indicated their willingness to contribute feature articles to The CVJ. We look forward to receiving them in the years ahead. Simply send an e-mail to the editor indicating your interest in writing on a particular subject.

There is interest in more articles on emerging diseases, current diseases, and disease outbreaks. We have published every article that has been submitted on these topics and we have exempted such articles from a long waiting time prior to publication. We will continue to be very receptive to articles in these categories.

We don’t have a lifestyle section in the journal and we agree that this is a very important aspect of veterinary practice. However, we believe that the column “The Art of Private Veterinary Practice” effectively addresses lifestyle issues and practitioner-client relationships.

The CVJ is the end product of contributions by authors, reviewers, staff, advertisers, and readers. We seek to use the resources from all groups to ensure that The CVJ is a high quality publication that serves its readers effectively. We thank all these contributors for what they have done in the past and we look forward to continuing assistance in the future.