EJCTS to be online only

Dear Member,

In October this year European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EJCTS) will be joining Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS) to become an online-only publication. Times are changing and so are we!  We now live in a digital world where both researchers and readers expect information to be easy to find and fast to access – from any device in any location – and online journals fulfill this need.

We understand that some of you may miss receiving your monthly copy of EJCTS, but after much debate we have decided that moving to online-only is the right thing to do, for EACTS and for our readers all over the world.

Here is a summary of our thinking, for your convenience:

• By moving to online-only, EACTS can focus its efforts on improving the online journals, which in turn will deliver faster and more effective access to research information.
• The EJCTS and ICTVS journal homepages are about to be significantly upgraded, making articles even more accessible than ever before.  Additional new functionality is timetabled for launch early next year.
• Video can be a vitally important component of the papers EJCTS publishes.  Our online journals offer the specialty-focused video and sound content that is so often an essential element of a research article.
• And finally, online-only journals save paper and plastic and eliminate the cost of distribution. We have become painfully conscious of the environmental cost of printing thousands of journals every month and we believe that this is unsustainable, in every sense of the word.

We hope you will support us in this decision and we look forward to announcing the launch of our new online journal homepages and improved functionality very soon.

With best wishes,

Friedhelm Beyersdorf                                                         Matthias Siepe
Editor-in-Chief                                                                     Incoming Editor-in-Chief