In December 2009, when I announced the rebirth of the LIHJ as an online journal, I proclaimed that the semiannual publication will follow the original LIHJ format of “late Fall and Spring issues” (publisher’s note). The date of this announcement was December 14, 2009 – a few days before winter solstice. Calling that “late Fall” was a stretch, which this issue is correcting. From now on, the publication sequence of LIHJ issues will be Winter and Summer of the same calendar year. This adjustment will bring the editorial and technical production of our two issues in line with their actual publication months, which are most likely January and June. This modification will also end the tradition that a single LIHJ volume overlaps two calendar years (with the “Fall” issue appearing in 2009 and the “Spring” issue in 2010, for example).
A much more important change, however, will be implemented next, definitely before publication of the Summer 2011 issue and, hopefully, without any noticeable difference for the user/reader of the LIHJ. Soon, all operations “under the hood” will be handled by WordPress, an open source Content Management System (CMS) that is used widely, mainly for blogs. The look and feel of the Web interface of the LIHJ will appear unchanged, yet this technical transformation will empower the editors of the LIHJ to “post” content and thus accomplish what had to be handed over to the publisher before (because it required technical know-how). Of course, one can meditate about the deep meaning of this reshuffling of the workload, but the bottom line is that the LIHJ, and non-commercial publications like it, can only survive and thrive if they use the most advanced and cost-efficient means of production.
Wolf Schäfer
Publisher
P.S.: LIHJ has implemented WordPress with Volume 22, Issue 2, and, in due course, done away with all seasonal descriptions (Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter). Now, LIHJ issues are simply identified by year, volume, and issue number.
WS
10 February 2012