Editors’ Page

A decade ago, two new editors took over the reins at Historical Records of Australian Science (HRAS) as the journal moved to online publication. Although there were no longer printed copies of the journal, the traditional practice of publishing was retained, in that following peer review papers accepted for publication and editing were held for release in one of the two issues that constituted the annual volume. Along the way, HRAS introduced something that was only possible with non-print publication and widely adopted by other journals: finished papers were published online-early, with definitive document identifiers (DOIs), and final pagination was added when the issue was published.

Now HRAS, along with most of the journals published by CSIRO Publishing, is adopting another of these global changes, continuous publication. Under this system, at the point where a paper would have been published online-early, as described above, the definitive publication will take place. A reference to a paper published in the new system would look like this—Weigold, E., Petrovic, Z. L. and Buckman, S. J. (2025) Robert Woodhouse Crompton 1926–2022, Historical Records of Australian Science 36, HR24028. doi:10.1071/HR24028—and it would only have internal page numbers (1–8, in this case). Papers published in this way will appear on the HRAS website, and twice a year they will be collected in date order for an issue of the journal. This would normally take place in June and December. More details of the new publishing system are available at https://www.publish.csiro.au/HR/Continuouspublication. The papers already published online in 2024 and the start of 2025 have been reformatted for continuous publication, and they will be included in the first issue for 2025 (Volume 36 (1)). Smoothing out the transition, this will appear in April, and be followed by 36(2) in December. Book Reviews and the annual Bibliography of the History of Australian Science will continue to appear as they are accepted.

Starting in 2021 CSIRO Publishing has signed Read and Publish agreements (https://www.publish.csiro.au/an/forauthors/ReadandPublish) with a number of institutions that make papers by their authors Open Access—that is, freely available without charge to author or reader with clear licences that allow for further sharing and reuse. There will be no change to this under a continuous publication model.

We take this opportunity to thank Dr Sara Maroske for her leadership over the past decade. As an editor, sometimes an author, and always a strong advocate for HRAS, she has attracted authors to the journal, broadened its scope and interested new readers. Sara has resigned to concentrate on other aspects of her scholarly work, and Dr Ruth Morgan, Director of the Centre for Environmental History at the Australian National University has joined Ian as co-editor.