Šumarski list, Vol. 148 No. 5-6, 2024.
Uvodnik
The scientific and professional character of Forestry Journal
Uredništvo HŠD
; Hrvatsko šumarsko društvo
Sažetak
In the reorganization of the Yugoslavian Forestry Association, at the first assembly of the Croatian Forestry Society (CFS) held in Zagreb on 17 March 1940, one of the proposals of CFS’s action committee was as follows: “The Mana-gement Board has to make sure that Forestry Journal publishes as many articles as possible from the daily forestry practice and that it conveys the daily events and real needs of foresters and forestry practice in the field.” (Forestry Journal 3-4/1940)
Milan Androić, PhD, the editor of Forestry Journal, reporting on the publication of the Journal at the 76th regular Assembly of the Croatian Forestry Society held on 13 February 1995 pointed out the difficulties in choosing the arti-cles: “…It is easy to understand why our journal often chooses articles of very scientific character. When there is less material from the field, we print articles by our colleagues from the Faculty of Forestry, whose duty is to write. It is not a bad thing that the journal publishes so many of these articles. The articles provide expert content, and it cannot be said that they are always without a practical value. We believe that our colleagues deal with issues that are very much present in practice. Therefore, Forestry Journal could not be criticized for being too scientific, because even if that was the case, this would only help it gain its reputation in Croatia and abroad… In the Journal, practice and sci-ence should complement each other, and both sides should benefit from it. Unfortunately, forestry professionals from practice have not offered their contribution to the Journal. We hope that in 1995 this could change, which would undoubtedly be approved by the future editor.” (Forestry Journal 3-4/1940)
At the 17th meeting of the Management Board of the Association of Engineers and Technicians of Forestry and Wood Industry of Croatia held on 11 November 1975 in Zagreb it was reported about the meeting of the main and field Editorial Board of Forestry Journal. As part of the findings and proposals presented at the meeting, the following was also stated: “1) Forestry Journal does not sufficiently publish events and changes of organizational and professional nature that have taken place in forestry and wood industry since 1945. The current subject matter and structure of the Journal does not satisfy forestry professionals from practice; 2) Through the selection of the received articles and more targeted writing, Forestry Journal must become more suitable, more useful and attractive in terms of its con-tent, as well as more focused on the needs of the forestry practice; 3) It should continue publishing relevant scientific articles, but in a condensed and more acceptable form with brief instructions by the authors on how experts from the field practice should approach the scientific conclusions published in the article; 4) Forestry Journal should include more articles on the history of Croatian forestry and wood industry…” (Forestry Journal 11-12/1975)
Technical editor of Forestry Journal, Oskar Piškorić, MSc, in a report on the publication of Forestry Journal at the 90th regular Assembly of the Association of Engineers and Technicians of Forestry and Wood Industry of Croatia held on 27 February 1985 in Zagreb concluded the following: “In the end, it can be stressed that we still receive few contributions in the form of articles from the field practice. It should be emphasized that in earlier periods (50 and more years ago) the main contributors to Forestry Journal were experts from the field practice.” (Forestry Journal 5-6/1985)
Editor-in-chief of Forestry Journal, prof. Boris Hrašovec, PhD, stated on the 1st meeting of the Management Board of the Croatian Forestry Society on 20 February 2015 in Zagreb: “Regarding the scientific evaluation of Forestry Jo-urnal, today it has a high impact factor. It is questionable whether and how much its factor can further increase due to the character of the journal, being not only a scientific, but also a professional and expert journal with a form that has been established throughout its long history. Nowadays, to achieve a high impact factor, a journal must have an exclusively scientific character with articles mostly published in English. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant thought that more and more reference journals follow the publication of Forestry Journal, and many world-famous libraries in-clude it in their holdings...” (Forestry Journal 1-2/2015)
At the 3rd meeting of the Management Board of the Croatian Forestry Society on 17 October 2015 in Krasno, the editor-in-chief of Forestry Journal, prof. Josip Margaletić, PhD, stated in his report: “It is a fact that over 70% of sci-entific papers published in Forestry Journal come from the region, i.e. from the neighboring countries, so we can rightly ask what has happened to Croatian scientists, but that is today's reality.” He continued with the following note: “Josip Dundović, MSc, expressed the need to encourage our colleagues from the field to publish professional papers, whose lack is evident. He suggested that even today, on this meeting, our colleagues from the field should be encou-raged for more engagement in publication.” (Forestry Journal 11-12/2015)
After reading all the aforementioned statements collected from 1940 to 2015, it seems that the critical attitude towards the content and the lack of professional papers by authors from forestry practice are a constant issue for Forestry Journal. The editors of the Journal have always been aware of this, as well as the foresters who read Fores-try Journal more closely. There are also some who claim that they do not read Forestry Journal because there is nothing to read in it, and lately some have been complaining about the lack of Croatian authors. Can anything be changed in this regard? If something is written and talked about, it means that its work is followed. Constructive criti-cism is useful and can lead to improvement, but objective criticism requires a comprehensive overview of the condi-tions and opportunities for creating a journal that has changed and adapted over time precisely in order to persist.
Despite everything, Forestry Journal has been published continuously since its first issue of 1 January 1877, including in times of crisis and war. This makes it the oldest continuously published Croatian scientific journal, and it holds between the 5th and 6th place in the world. In less than two years, the 150th volume of the journal will be published. All of this shows the persistence of this expert journal despite all the challenges it has been through.
Editorial Board
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
317847
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.6.2024.
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