American Journal of Botany Named a Top 10 Most Influential Journal of the Century

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) has selected the American Journal of Botany as one of the 10 most influential journals of the past 100 years in the field of biology and medicine. The SLA announced the results on June 16, 2009 at its annual business luncheon in Washington, DC.

To commemorate the SLA’s 100th anniversary, The Biomedical and Life Sciences Division (DBIO) of the SLA convened an international panel of 9 eminent subject experts to compile a ballot for an electronic poll of their membership to determine the 100 most influential journals of biology and medicine over the 100 years of the association's existence. The AJB—published by the Botanical Society of America (BSA)—competed in a field of 13 nominated journals of Botany and was recently selected as one of the top 100. This new honor is even more prestigious.

Prof. Judy Jernstedt (Univ. of California, Davis), current Editor-in-Chief of the AJB, said, “This is an enormous honor for the American Journal of Botany, to be in the company of such distinguished journals. Our work is cut out for us, to try to be worthy of this recognition and to continue to improve the quality and stature of this society-supported journal."

The President of the BSA and former Editor-in-Chief of the AJB, Prof. Karl J. Niklas (Cornell University), said, "The BSA membership can take great pride in seeing their flagship publication honored in this way. Since the inception of the BSA, our members have striven to produce and disseminate peer-reviewed scientific articles of the highest quality. The recognition of the AJB as one among the top 10 journals in biology and medicine testifies to their hard work and dedication and to the importance of non-profit scientific societies like the BSA."

The remaining Top 10 journals include Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, Journal of Zoology, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, and Journal of Paleontology.

The SLA is a professional organization of subject specialist librarians, information managers, and publishing industry representatives. To learn more about the criteria for selecting the most influential journals, visit http://units.sla.org/division/dbio/publications/resources/dbio100.html.

The Botanical Society of America (www.botany.org) is a non-profit membership society with a mission to promote botany, the field of basic science dealing with the study and inquiry into the form, function, development, diversity, reproduction, evolution, and uses of plants and their interactions within the biosphere. It has published the American Journal of Botany (www.amjbot.org) for nearly 100 years. For further information, please contact Richard Hund, Project Manager of the American Journal of Botany, at rhund@botany.org or Amy McPherson, Managing Editor of the American Journal of Botany, at amcpherson@botany.org.