And the Winner Is…
Earlier this year, PLoS ONE was nominated for the ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) award for Publishing Innovation, 2009, and was short-listed alongside nominees as varied as Elsevier’s Brain Navigator, The Royal Marsden Hospital Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures, and The LEAP exemplars, Internet Archaeology.
Lindsay King and I have worked at PLoS ONE since before the journal’s launch in 2006 and we’ve always felt that PLoS ONE is unique in a number of ways, from its pioneering editorial policies to its regular technical innovations, including the commentary and rating features available on all of our articles—in short, PLoS ONE has always sought to revolutionise the way in which scientific research is published and so we were honoured to be shortlisted by the ALPSP for this prestigious award.
The ALPSP’s 2009 award winners were announced last night as part of its annual conference at the Belfry Hotel, near Oxford, and Lindsay and I were lucky enough to be able to attend. I’m sure the meal was delicious although I for one was too nervous and excited to remember much about what we ate!
After dinner and a very entertaining speech from Derek Law, it was time for the first award to be announced—and it was for Publishing Innovation. The Chair of the judging panel for this award and for Best New Journal, Hazel Woodward, University Librarian & Director of Cranfield Press, took to the stage to explain some of the reasons for the panel’s choice of winner. As Lindsay and I were listening, we started to think, “this does sound a lot like PLoS ONE” but of course we didn’t want to count any chickens, even if we completely agreed that we are a “bold” development, which has already demonstrated—and will continue to demonstrate—its pursuit of and capacity for innovation (paraphrasing from Hazel’s speech).
And then we heard the magic words: “And the winner is…PLoS ONE.” We hurried up onto the stage to collect our award and a framed certificate from Ann Lawson, of EBSCO, the sponsors of the award (coincidentally, Ann had been sitting at the same table as Lindsay and me all evening, although didn’t give us any hints during the meal of our impending victory!). We posed for some photos and then returned to our seats while the rest of the awards were announced and while we weren’t literally mobbed after the event had finished, a number of people came up to us to congratulate us on behalf of everyone at PLoS ONE and PLoS.
All and all it was a very fun night. Working for PLoS ONE is always exciting, although also sometimes quite tiring (!), but winning the award has made it all worthwhile. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the ALPSP, EBSCO and, most importantly, all of our authors, editors and reviewers throughout the world, without whom PLoS ONE could not be the successful—and innovative—journal it is today.
