Another aspect of online production is the tracking system. In the weeks following publication, it has been interesting to follow the changes in the ‘most downloaded article’ box provided next to the list of contents. Instead of wondering, as lone authors might once have done, whether anyone ever reads their work, curious authors may track their own citations at the click of a button. (We were recently shown a statistic that indicated on-line availability increased citations of an article by 150%.) For following up the impact of any piece of research, locating other interested colleagues, or alerting others to new materials, all these buttons provide effective short-cuts, and promise savings of time and labour.

However, such statistics for downloads could be seen as double-edged, part of the rise in global surveillance in the early twenty-first century. Libraries and institutions can, and increasingly do, deploy these to check the use of subscriptions. In times of cost-cutting, managers will not hesitate to produce low scores as reasons for dropping a journal from the list. Evidence from citations and journal rankings is already being marshalled in many countries to rank universities, departments and individual researchers within them.

But (to take a positive view) for children’s literature researchers, such statistics might also prove valuable testimony. Citations, evidence of a widespread and strong research culture, all give strong signals to our institutions and grant-funding bodies, that we are being read, throughout the world, and that we are working in an established and ever-burgeoning field.

Working on IRCL

Behind the scenes

All IRSCL members involved with the journal, whether advisors, editors, readers, or reviewers, are unpaid volunteers, working without secretarial or administrative help. Although we do our best to respond quickly to contributors, we all have to find ways of fitting the diverse tasks into busy lives as full-time academics, teachers, researchers and writers.

However, we are very fortunate to be part of the larger enterprise of the prestigious Edinburgh University Press. If we had feared a remote, impersonal corporation, we were quickly reassured. The press, based in an old house, in one of the prettiest squares in this beautiful city, is a place where we have found new, interested, colleagues: Diana Spencer, our contact in the crucial founding days, and now Sarah Edwards, who oversees the development of journals, Ann Vinnicombe who steers us through production, and Wendy Gardiner who manages publicity and marketing. Here, we are treated as individuals, and all our own questions meet with instant and constructive help.

The rewards as editors are manifold. We are in touch with colleagues all over the world, and are privileged to have insights into their work in progress and into contemporary Children’s Literature research internationally. The cross-cultural contacts are enormously interesting and productive, and, if I might introduce a personal note, as first congress editor I have been learning a tremendous amount -- from all potential contributors, and advisors, and, not least from my fellow editors. Seeing the whole cycle of an article, from first submission (or even conference presentation) to publication, is deeply satisfying.

Some IRCL contributors

What has appearing in the new journal meant to its first contributors? A few of our authors comment here: