Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 10:06:58 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam Friends: I received it by email from a friend and editor of a medical library journal. I thought many of you would find it useful. Best wishes. Arun Those of you who are interested in looking into the peer review process further may be interested in the following: The indispensible starting point for serious study of peer review is Ann C. Weller's "Editorial Peer Review: Its Strengths and Weaknesses" (ASIST, 2001). This is a systematic review of over 1,100 studies of the peer review process and includes chapters on Editors and Editorial Boards, Role of Reviewers, Reviewers and their Biases, and Peer Review in an Electronic Environment, among other topics. In 1986, JAMA sponsored the first International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication. The proceedings of the 4th Congress, which was held in Barcelona in September 2001, are published as a special theme issue of JAMA, June 5, 2002, volume 297, number 21. In 2000/2001, the journal Academic Medicine underwent a thorough study of their own peer review process. The results of that study, which includes very useful information on the peer review process at other publications, is presented in Academic Medicine, September 2001, volume 76, number 9. And finally, Ann Weller recently brought to my attention a new publication from BMJ Books, "How to survive peer review" by Elizabeth Wager, Fiona Godlee and Tom Jefferson (BMJ Books, 2002). I haven't seen it yet, but it comes highly recommended. T. Scott Plutchak Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences University of Alabama at Birmingham tscott@uab.edu