OBESITY SURGERY joins the Springer Family

OBESITY SURGERY commenced publication in 1991 to foster the interaction and development of the emerging field of bariatric surgery and its allied health sciences. The journal, now published monthly, has achieved considerable prestige. In 2004 and again in the recently released 2005 Journal Citation Reports, the ISI impact factor ranking of the journal has been 7th out of 139 surgical journals and the immediacy index has been ranked 3rd. As the official voice of the illustrious International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and 33 of its societies, the journal has developed a devoted global readership. Furthermore, the online activity of the electronic version has become vast.

In a strategic move to further develop the journal in the international marketplace, we are pleased to announce that Springer Science+Business Media, LLC has acquired OBESITY SURGERY from FD-Communications Inc of Toronto. Springer will provide the infrastructure needed to ensure readership expansion among clinicians worldwide. Furthermore, Springer will bring enhanced online features and their state-of-the-art medical publishing expertise to the journal. Springer has the reach to increase awareness of OBESITY SURGERY and to meet the growing challenges that bariatric surgeons face in a global community.

The distinguished Editorial Board comprised of top authorities in the field will remain the same, as well as the high quality of the international papers published. Each manuscript will continue to be reviewed by at least two reviewers, and the Editorial Office staff in Toronto and the Advertising Sales Director will remain unchanged.

OBESITY SURGERY is now available via SpringerLink, Springer’s online information platform and includes Online First™, a feature whereby articles are published online before they appear in print. Also, OBESITY SURGERY offers all authors, via the Springer Open Choice program, the option to make their online articles available to the public (www.springer.com/openchoice). There will also be the feature of publishing brief videos online. In addition, readers can sign up for SpringerLinkAlert. This feature enables readers to obtain knowledge first-hand of upcoming tables of contents and books, free of charge. This service can be customized to deliver the exact information that the reader requests (www.springer.com/springeralerts).

ABOUT SPRINGER
For more than a century, Springer has a rich history of publishing momentous original scientific works. Springer Science+Business Media is one of the world’s leading suppliers of scientific and specialist literature (www.springer.com). It is the second largest publishing group in the science, technology and medicine (STM) sector, and the largest business-to-business publisher in the German language area. The group owns 70 publishing houses, together publishing a total of 1,450 journals and more than 5,000 new books per year. The group operates in over 20 countries in Europe, North America and Asia, and has some 5,000 employees.

Mervyn Deitel, MD
Editor, Toronto