JOURNAL OF THE BALKAN GEOPHYSICAL SOCIETY,
Vol. 1, No 1, February 1998, p. 1.
Presidential Address: Starting on-line journal
of BGS for applied and pure geophysics
Ahmet T. Basokur
President of Balkan Geophysical Society
The Chamber of Geophysical Engineers of Turkey took over of the
presidency of Balkan Geophysical Society (BGS) from the Hellenic
Geophysical Union a year ago and I have completed my first year
in the second executive committee. My predecessor Dr. George Sideris
of Hellenic Geophysical Union, and the first executive committee
members Dr. M. Loucoyannakis, Prof. E. Lagios and Y. Grigoriou successfully
completed many hard works in the beginning years of the society.
The First Balkan Geophysical Congress held in Athens proved that
the society was well managed. On behalf of all member societies,
I thank the first president and the executive committee for their
prosperous works. I hope that the second executive committee will
strengthen these activities.
At the moment, the second executive committee
has completed the construction of the BGS web site
(http://www.BalkanGeophySoc.org).
We hope that our home page will open a wide window by supplying
a direct link to all geoscientist. This will also give us a chance
to electronically publish our scientific journal inside our home
page. Our E-journal, 'Journal of the Balkan Geophysical Society'
will appear quarterly in February, May, August and November. Publishing
a journal on the Internet has several advantages, for example, speed
and low cost. The authors will not wait for a long time (one and
half year in favourable conditions) to see their manuscripts in
the printed form. If the review process can be accelerated using
the Internet then the Editor can publish the papers in six months
after receiving. The second advantage is that any reader who has
Internet access can read and print the papers without any extra
cost. If someone has a computer and Internet access in the office
or at home, then our journal is much closer than a printed one that
is stored in the library of the company. We should also mention
that many small companies and institutions might not have sufficient
budget to buy several journals published on geophysics. Moreover,
the readers can read or print only the interested papers instead
of buying the complete volume of a printed journal. E-journals are
cost effective for both the publisher and the readers. Still, there
are additional advantages of E-journals such as coloured figures,
and inserting movies and sounds in the near future. The most importantly,
E-journals are not harmful for the environment and they save the
nature and forests. Because, we waste electrons instead of papers
produced by chemical processes that run out a lot of trees. At this
point, more probably you are asking if there is any disadvantage
of E-journals. In reality, there is not. However, the idea seems
to be quite new. Whenever I mention publishing an E-journal, someone
asks if the value of an E-journal would be the same as the printed
one. I can plainly respond that the value of any journal in printed
or in electronically published form, is defined by its contents.
If the published papers are in high quality then the journal will
be a valuable one.
The editor, Gregory N. Tsokas of Thessaloniki
University has done his best efforts to create a valuable journal
and now the first issue has already been published. We hope that
you will support us by submitting valuable papers in future.
Surely, our web page is not constructed
only to publish our journal. First of all, we should know that the
construction of a web site is not sufficient that someone visits
it without any reason. Except the students, nobody has free time
to visit many web sites only for curiosity. The journal is good
reason to take attraction of the geoscientists, but we have to provide
additional services. For example, we can publish books, lecture
notes, survey reports and software. The materials can be prepared
in English or in one of the Balkan languages. We would like to receive
such materials not only from the members but also from all over
the world. We also open a page for 'Exploration News' so that our
members will be aware of the company activities. Member societies
should support the executive committee to make our web pages interesting.
Finally, I hope that our web site will
make all geophysicists more closely than before. I thank again all
colleagues who made contributions to the Balkan Geophysical Society.
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