This issue is the commencement of the 250th volume of Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology — a proud timeline for the journal.

To predict the future, one has to acknowledge the past. Last year the journal’s impact factor increased to 2.1. To guarantee and continue with this success we, as Editor-in-Chiefs, need to know how this was achieved. Who contributed to the journal? Who downloaded our articles? Which articles were the most cited? Perhaps most relevant to our readers, why should they submit to our journal?

The last question is probably the easiest to answer. The journal is going from strength to strength. The numbers speak for themselves. Graefe’s distribution has increased significantly, especially to institutions. The number of institutions subscribing to the journal has increased from 5,350 in 2008 to 8,005 in 2010. Of course, nowadays usage of the journal often takes the form of online download. In 2008, the number of full-article downloads was 140,750. By 2010, this number increased to 237,479. The purpose of publication is to disseminate information. These figures alone should persuade authors to consider submitting to our journal.

Access to the journal is predominantly online; it is therefore possible to know who uses the journal. In terms of downloads, the distribution is about one third from Europe and one third from Asia-Pacific, with less than one quarter from North America. The country with the most frequent full-article download is USA, accounting for 19% of all downloads, followed by Germany and China at 9% and 8% respectively. And how do readers search for our articles? You may be surprised that the answer is that Google and Pubmed are now equally as popular as the academic search engine.

The number of articles being submitted has also significantly increased. In 2008, we received 841 articles. In 2010, this increased to 1,055. Geographically, most submissions are from Germany at 138 articles followed by China at 128, USA 99 and Japan 87. These four countries together contributed half of all articles published. Although Germany is clearly in the lead in the league table of contributors, there is no doubt that the journal is not only European but truly global, with authors from 51 countries submitting to Graefe’s.

As open-access case-report journals have become more popular, the trend for many international journals is to accept fewer case reports. In 2010, we published 205 original articles, but only 17 case reports. We, however, always welcome letters to the editor, many of which have proven to be highly interesting. In the coming 12 months, we have solicited world-leading pathologists to prepare a series of review articles covering different aspects of ocular pathology. We hope that readers will find these updates useful, and that trainees will download and study them.

The list of the top ten most cited articles in Graefe’s are given below (Table 1). Seven of the top ten dealt with topics related to the retina. Only four of the ten are review articles. The majority of the most frequently cited articles are clinical, with only two of the ten predominantly laboratory-based research.

Table 1 Top ten articles downloaded in 2010 (source: Coremetrics)
Full size table

After 250 years, Graefe’s Archive is now predominantly online; it still has a retinal focus; the journal is truly global, being contributed and accessed by all people across the world. As editors, we are transient custodians, fully aware of the journal’s strong tradition and our own responsibility to ensure its continued success.