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Manual Therapy 10 (2005) 93–95

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Editorial

Manual Therapy Journal 10 year anniversary

A warm welcome to this issue of Manual Therapy

Journal. The year 2005 sees the 10th anniversary of thejournal. The first issue was published in November 1995and on this occasion, it is timely to recall the origins ofthe journal, acknowledge the people involved in itsproduction as well as looking to the future.

1. The origins

Manual Therapy Journal was conceived in a smallcoffee shop in Holborn, London on a cold Autumnmorning in 1994, when a meeting was held between AnnMoore and Mary Emmerson Law from the publishinghouse, Churchill Livingstone (Mary Law is well knownto many readers of Manual Therapy Journal). Ann wasat that time editor of the Manipulative Physiotherapist

Journal, the in-house journal of the ManipulationAssociation of Chartered Physiotherapists (MACP) inthe UK, and had been editor of this journal since 1990,having taken on the role from Sarah Wykham.

The Manipulative Physiotherapist Journal had grownfrom a regular two page newsletter that was originallyproduced by Greg Grieve in the 1980s. The originalnewsletter was lovingly typed (not word processed!) byGreg’s wife Barbara, and was circulated to members ofthe MACP by post. Gradually due to Greg andBarbara’s hard work and enthusiasm, the newsletterevolved into a 20 page newsletter, including an editorial,reviews, course advertisements and short articles. It wasproduced in-house and posted to all subscribers.

With the increasing number of members of theMACP, and the newsletter growing in size, in-houseprinting was no longer an option, and so in the secondhalf of the 1980s’ a new in-house journal, The

Manipulative Physiotherapist Journal was developed,which although edited and produced in-house was sentout for printing and then was returned to the editor forposting out to members of the MACP. This was quite alarge task for the editor who apart from their ownresources and some secretarial input had no other helpon the production or editing side.

see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ath.2005.03.002

In the early nineties, the Manipulative Physiotherapist

Journal was very short of content. It was difficult toobtain good quality articles. The publishing culture inMusculoskeletal Therapy in the United Kingdom wasnot strong, and the journal as an in-house journal wasnot particularly attractive to more experienced authorseither in the United Kingdom or on the internationalscene. Thus, it was very rare at that time to receiveunsolicited papers and material was canvassed fromconferences with varying success.

By 1994, it was concluded that there was no brightfuture in in-house publishing. If a high-quality journalwas to be developed, there would always be resourceissues and always be the tendency for authors andresearchers to use the in-house journal for research thatcould not be published elsewhere, and the best scenariowould be relying on well-known names in the ManualTherapy world for opinion pieces and/or summaries oftheir work to date. There were however, a number ofManual Therapists internationally who did contributeto the Manipulative Physiotherapist Journal in this wayand who thankfully helped to raise it’s profile andstandard to a point where the publishers Churchill

Livingstone, were interested in developing and market-ing a new international journal for MusculoskeletalTherapists, what we know today as the Manual Therapy

Journal.The prospect of a new international journal was an

exciting development for both Ann Moore and for theManipulation Association of Chartered Physiothera-pists, but more excitement was to come, in particular,the internationalisation of the journal. The creation oftoday’s Manual Therapy began with invitations foreditorship. Gwen Jull was an obvious choice for co-editorship, with Ann Moore, with her international andstrong research profile. Gwen and Ann had not met atall before 1994 and eventually met over coffee, an eventarranged by Mary Emmerson Law. (Coffee seems tohave featured large in the development of this journal!)The meeting took place at Herriot Watt University inEdinburgh during a Manipulation Association ofChartered Physiotherapists Conference in November1994, and the meeting really was held to see if Ann and

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Gwen could envisage working together! The meetingwent well. Since that date the editors have been infrequent and regular contact by phone and email, andmeet up usually at least once a year to discuss journalissues, an arrangement works well.

One of the principal ideas behind the development ofthe international journal, was the hope that manyMusculoskeletal Therapists from all over the worldwould read the journal and through their readingdevelop a common language and knowledge base inrespect of manual therapy. A second driver for thedevelopment of an international journal was to raise thestandard of publications in the musculoskeletal field andincrease exposure to other disciplines. Over the years alarge number of high-quality articles have been pub-lished in Manual Therapy and because of this and ourinternational perspective, Manual Therapy has beenincluded in all the major citation indices, for exampleIndex Medicus/Medline, CINHAL, Amed. For the last 2years Manual Therapy Journal has been awarded animpact factor, which has risen to its current status of1.189. This is an indication of how much the journalcontent is cited in other journals and in other articleswithin the journal itself. It is now ranked 6th in therehabilitation journals. In addition, full text articlesdownloads from the Manual Therapy website haveincreased phenomenally from 9000 in 2002 to 62,143 inthe most recent audit. This is a phenomenal increase ininterest in the Journal.

2. Recognition of the Editorial Advisory Board and

Journal Reviewers

As editors we are very proud of these achievements,but these successes are not at all due to the editors alone.The successes are due to a large team effort that involvesa great number of people across the world, and so forthis reason many warm thanks are due from the editorsto

Members of the current Editorial Board—KarenBeeton, Jeff Boyling, Raymond Swinkels, Kevin Singerand Darren Rivett, Members of the original EditorialBoard in 1995, Roger Soames and Clive Standen andnew Board member, Tim McClune. All of theseindividuals have given many hours of devoted work inproducing Manual Therapy on a regular basis. They helpdevelop the policies and procedures for the journal,review manuscripts and books on a regular basis as wellas promote the journal whenever possible in their owncountries and at international conferences and events.

Thanks also go to all those individuals not directlyaffiliated to the journal who review papers, as withouthigh-quality reviewers, the standard of the journalwould not be as high as it is. The reviewers share inthe success of the today’s journal.

3. Recognition of the production team

Acknowledgement is also given to a host of indivi-duals on the production side of the journal who workbehind the scenes to ensure that the journal is published.

In particular, thanks go to Mary Emmerson Law,originally from Churchill Livingstone, but now part ofElsevier Science, who had the original confidence in thejournal to take it into the Churchill Livingstoneportfolio of journals, and who has given both editorsand the Editorial Board a tremendous amount ofpersonal support over the years. Additionally, manythanks go to Barbara Muir, Mary Law’s secretary forher efficiency in the early days and her ‘‘wee anecdotes’’from Edinburgh that brightened some dark days on thepublishing front from time to time.

Acknowledgement and thanks go to all ChurchillLivingstone and latterly Elsevier staff who havecontributed to the journal in terms of editorial manage-ment, editorial support, production and marketing andwho have worked with us consistently over the years tosustain the journal and its growth. In particular,Melanie Tait is acknowledged. She always seems tohave a solution to the problem in hand and also gives aconsiderable amount of personal support to the, editors.Sarah Davis, Jacqui Braney and Jo Merrett have been inday to day contact with us as editors over the last fewyears. Thanks also go to those involved in local journaladministration support over the years and these includeSara Hester, Denise Scott Fears, Jayne Ingles and NickyPont and to the dozens of staff at Elsevier Science whoare involved in the journal production and editingprocess who we never meet or see, but are very muchappreciated for all the work done behind the scenes.

4. Recognition of the authors

All contributors to the journal over the last 10 yearperiod are especially acknowledged for it is the manu-scripts that make the journal. Also without thecontributors the evidence base of Manual Therapywould not be growing at the speed at which it isgrowing to date. Thank you very much for wishing topublish in Manual Therapy Journal and we hope youwill publish with us again in the near future.

5. Recognition of the readers

Thanks are due to the readership and subscribers,without whose support there would be no journal. Wewould like to encourage you to contribute to thescholarly debate within the journal by writing to theeditors about issues of importance to MusculoskeletalTherapists in your locality and also with constructive

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comments on the academic papers that are published inthe journal. We hope you will continue reading Manual

Therapy Journal.

6. The future

And so to the future of the journal and its goals. Someof these may be summarised as follows:

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A continued presence as a high-quality internationaljournal.

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Further expansion of the science and evidence base ofmusculoskeletal therapy.

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An increasing number of high-quality contributions. � An increase in the number of journal issues per year. � A widening readership.

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A continuous increase in impact factor status. � The satisfaction of all our stakeholders.

Manual Therapy Journal will celebrate its 10thanniversary in September 2005 at the MACP/KineticControl Conference to be held in Edinburgh, asadvertised in this journal. We hope to see many of youthere and to share in the celebrations. Our thanks andcheers to all.

Ann Moore, Gwen Jull(Co-editors)

University of Brighton, Aldro Building, 49 Darley Road,

Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN20 7UR, UK

E-mail address: a.p.moore@bton.ac.uk (A. Moore)