Susan Spilka
sspilka@wiley.com
Wiley
(201) 748-6147
A Passion For Publishing: Peter Gölitz Celebrates 25 Years as Editor-in-Chief of Angewandte Chemie
Weinheim, Germany, November 1, 2007 — When Peter Gölitz took over editorship of the German Chemical Society's journal "Angewandte Chemie" at Verlag Chemie publishers in 1982, an editorial team of five chemists including himself published merely 1,000 pages a year and more than 90% of the articles were from Germany. Today, a copy of the journal hits the reader's desk and/or desktop every week and the annual page count, available in both print and digital formats has risen to well over 9,000 pages. German authors are still the largest group of contributors, but four out of five articles published come from all over the world. The editorial team comprises 18 PhD chemists and 9 other colleagues with diverse capabilities. The most stunning measure of the journal's success, however, is its impact factor, the citation metric established by the Institute for Scientific Information: From earning just over 4 in 1982, Angewandte Chemie’s impact factor rose to over 10 in 2007, surpassing its established competitors.
"Peter Gölitz’s commitment to quality, innovation, and collaboration with our learned society partners has been instrumental in developing Angewandte Chemie, or Angewandte as it is known colloquially in the chemical community, as one of the world’s preeminent chemistry journals. We are proud that he represents Wiley in this community and look forward to continuing our enduring partnership with him," says William J. Pesce, President and CEO, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., which acquired VCH Publishers to form Wiley-VCH in 1996. Dr. Gölitz’s achievements were recognized in 2000, when the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (German Chemical Society, GDCh) awarded him its Gmelin-Beilstein Medal, and in 2005, when the French Chemical Society (SFC) acknowledged his contributions to European chemistry publishing. In the 1990s, Dr. Gölitz was instrumental to the consolidation of the European chemistry journals system by helping to found Chemistry—A European Journal with 14 national society partners. He also served as a founding editor for Advanced Materials, ChemBioChem, ChemPhysChem, Small, ChemMedChem, and, most recently, ChemSusChem, a journal dedicated to chemistry and sustainability. The year 2006 saw the launch of Chemistry—An Asian Journal, which is supported and co-owned by eight Asian chemical societies, modeled after its successful European namesake.
In addition to extending the global reach of Angewandte and other Wiley-VCH publications, Dr. Gölitz has never forgotten his roots—he has also focused on developing Wiley-VCH’s publications in his native German. Angewandte still appears in a German and an international edition. "Even a reader who is pretty fluent in English will understand the crux of an article at least 10% faster if it is written in his native language—an important figure in the flood of information a chemist has to digest today," he says. "Angewandte is our flagship journal, and the GDCh is most thankful to Peter Gölitz leading it from strength to strength," adds Professor Wolfram Koch, the society's Executive Director. Last week, the journal was recognized with a "Kulturpreis Deutsche Sprache" (German Language Culture Award) for promoting German as a language of science.
About Wiley-VCH
Based in Germany, Wiley-VCH publishes science, technical and specialist information in print and electronic form (books, journals, and data collections), for professionals and experts. Wiley-VCH, which has been part of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., since 1996, was founded in 1921 by three learned societies and can be accessed at http://www.wiley-vch.de.
About Wiley
Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been a valued source of information and understanding for 200 years, helping people around the world meet their needs and fulfill their aspirations. Since 1901, Wiley and its acquired companies have published the works of more than 350 Nobel laureates in all categories: Literature, Economics, Physiology/Medicine, Chemistry and Peace.
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