Elsevier's mineral processing journals lead the way

The 2009 journal impact factors have just been published (see MEI Online). As in 2008, the specialised journal Hydrometallurgy has the highest impact factor, while Minerals Engineering heads the list of mineral processing and extractive metallurgy journals, followed by International Journal of Mineral Processing.

This is great news for these three minerals engineering journals in the Elsevier triumvirate. Earlier this year (see posting of 5th March) they were the only minerals engineering journals to receive the highest A* rating from the Australian Research Council, a measure of the high esteem to which they are held.

Last year (post of 6th February 2009) I reported that in 2008 there had been a staggering 288,845 downloads of Minerals Engineering papers from ScienceDirect.

I have just seen the figures for 2009, and the number of downloads was well over 356,000. Although the majority of these are from subscribers to ScienceDirect, over 10,000 were from individual pay-for-view downloads. The countries downloading the most Minerals Engineering papers are China, Iran, Australia, USA and South Africa. In the same period, International Journal of Mineral Processing had over 189,000 downloads. Pay-for-view is an excellent way for small companies to access papers from any Elsevier journal. A single paper can be accessed for $31.50.

I would like to make a personal thanks to all those who have contributed to the evolution of  Minerals Engineering, by submitting work to the regular issues and to the special issues of MEI Conferences. A special thankyou also to my team of around 175 reviewers, who make the all important peer-review process run smoothly, and to the Elsevier staff, particularly Dean Eastbury and Suresh Amalorpavaraj. It's a pleasure to work with all of you.