Abstract
Our only hope lies in grass-roots heroes.
When I was selected to become the third editor of The American Journal of Sports Medicine in 2001, the first order of business was to schedule a visit with Bob Leach at the Journal’s headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts to learn how the Journal was run. Nothing about the Journal office was too remarkable: banks of file cabinets, a few computers, a smattering of memorabilia on the walls. The object that commanded my attention and awe was a large articulated loose-leaf notebook that will always be embedded in my memory as The Big Black Book. A monumental 5 inches thick, The Big Black Book was the heart of AJSM. Between its featureless vinyl covers lay the vital information on all the Journal’s reviewers. Every individual had his or her own cream-colored page. Emblazoned atop each sheet was a reviewer’s name, followed by half an inch of blank space where a few details concerning their expertise and reviewing preferences could be recorded. Below that were carefully ruled columns where the dates when a review was assigned, accepted or declined, and completed, were dutifully chronicled in neat script. Some of the more prolific senior reviewers had a second sheet stapled over their original page.
There are many ways to symbolize a transfer of responsibility: passing the torch, changing the guard, bestowing the presidential medal, taking the oath of office. In my case, I felt that I had really become the editor of AJSM when I took custody of The Big Black Book. In a romanticized memory, I see Dr Leach placing the loose-leaf into my sweaty palms, his Yankee accent solemnly intoning, “AJSM is in your hands now, Bruce.” In reality, the process was much more prosaic: A few weeks after my visit to Waltham, the Book arrived by Federal Express in a cardboard box with a pile of other journal records.
Back then, the task of review assignment was a bit haphazard and definitely labor intensive. The reviewers’ pages were arranged alphabetically. If the name of a particular reviewer occurred to me as appropriate, I could turn directly to that page to see if he or she was already engaged in a review. Otherwise, I simply leafed through the book until I encountered 2 or 3 suitable individuals. In the name of efficiency, I would wait until several new submissions had accumulated so I could search for appropriate reviewers for all of them simultaneously. Once I had made my choices, I would email the names to Ann Donaldson, our managing editor, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Authors were required to submit 4 copies of their manuscripts, including glossy prints of all figures, and Ann would forward a set to each potential reviewer by expedited delivery. Reviewers who declined the assignment needed to return the package to Ann, who then sent it to the next in line.
Needless to say, this was a process sorely in need of streamlining. Soliciting reviews from experts who resided outside North America was particularly daunting. Ann and Donna Tilton, our current senior editorial and production manager, guided me through the selection of a computerized manuscript management system to complement the electronic publication platform initiated in late 2001 by Dr Leach. By the close of 2002, The Big Black Book had become obsolete. Manuscripts were now to be submitted online, with review assignment and completion accomplished in the same manner. Suddenly, a reviewer in Sydney or Cairo could be solicited just as easily as one in Denver or Milwaukee. Processing times diminished dramatically.
Online manuscript submission, review, and publication have definitely fostered the growth of AJSM. The number of manuscripts submitted in 2014 was more than quadruple the submissions from 2001. The Big Black Book sits in dusty retirement on a file cabinet in my basement, the quaint relic of a bygone era. Although it has much more charisma than a computer terminal, I shudder to envision the challenge we would face if we had to handle today’s article flow with 20th-century methods.
Luckily, our electronic review platform has allowed us to build up a large international reviewer team capable of keeping up with the current torrent of submissions. When a new paper arrives, I am able to summon up, with just a few mouse clicks, a list of individuals who possess the appropriate expertise. I can easily see when a reviewer was last solicited, how often they accept an assignment, their average turnaround time, and their review quality ratings; I can even download all their prior reviews. The online system benefits the reviewers by giving them the ability to access cited references quickly via hotlinks, enlarge figures and photographs, examine supplemental documents, and annotate papers electronically. After all reviews have been received and the editors have made the initial publication decision, the reviewers can compare their own evaluations with the other reviews of the same paper.
Although these cybernetic bells and whistles may facilitate the review process, they remain secondary in importance to the human element. The Big Black Book may have been thin on plot and short on literary style, but its pages nevertheless teemed with tales of valiant heroes. I am continually in awe of the selfless dedication of the hundreds of individuals who are willing to commit the time and effort required to review submitted manuscripts thoughtfully and conscientiously. They toil in anonymity; their main reward, the knowledge that their labors help to uphold the quality of the literature in orthopaedic sports medicine. At the close of each year, we pause to celebrate their vital work. They were the heroes of The Big Black Book, and they remain the heroes of its virtual successor.