Social Forces Tomorrow

This volume of Social Forces marks the beginning of our new publishing relationship with Oxford University Press. Until recently, the University of North Carolina Press had published Social Forces since it was founded in 1922 by pioneering sociologist and social activist Howard Odum. We are grateful to the UNC Press for their support over these many years.

During the year and a half since I took over the editorship of Social Forces, I have been impressed and very appreciative of the esteem in which the social science community holds this journal. I thank my predecessor, Editor François Nielsen, for his efforts in maintaining its high quality. I am also grateful to our Managing Editor, Jane Shealy, who has done a masterful job in editing manuscripts and fortunately for us all will continue to oversee the journal with OUP. Aaron Thomas, our editorial assistant, was terrific in helping me navigate the electronic submission system; we wish him all the best as he pursues the next chapter of his life. Student associate editors Colin Campbell, Cheryl Roberts, Rosemary Russo and Tiantian Yang, who helped find appropriate reviewers for the more than 400 submissions we received over the past 18 months, also ably assisted me. We all owe a special note of thanks to Howard Aldrich, chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill Sociology Department, who instituted and led the effort that culminated in the new relationship with OUP.

While there will be many changes, some things will remain the same. Social Forces will continue to highlight the best in sociological inquiry while at the same time exploring the realms shared with social psychology, anthropology, political science, history and economics. The journal will continue to receive guidance and support from the University of North Carolina’s Department of Sociology as well as an expanded International Editorial Board.

Technological Advances, New Publishing Opportunities

Our partnership with OUP will create a number of exciting new options for the authors and readers of Social Forces articles. These exciting developments will enable Social Forces to take advantage of the latest technological developments in disseminating its articles and book reviews.

These new opportunities include:

1. 1. The online availability of digitized versions of all material published in Social Forces back to Volume 1, Issue 1. A new website, sf.oxfordjournals.org, will make this content available to subscribers. All issues will also be fully searchable, making it easy for researchers and authors to locate, read and cite the content they need. Everyone, subscribers and non-subscribers alike, will also be able to view the table of contents of every issue and abstracts of every article. Non-subscribers can purchase articles of interest through pay-per-view or fill out an online library recommendation form to ask their institution to subscribe to the journal. The new website also includes social bookmarking, which allows readers to share articles via email, Facebook, Twitter, CiteULike and more.

2. 2. Accepted papers will now be available online as soon as they are copyedited via “Advance Access,” well ahead of their appearance in the printed journal. Advance Access constitutes official publication in Social Forces, allowing authors to see their articles faster and enabling scholars to read and cite this research earlier.

3. 3. Readers will be able to sign up to receive email table of contents alerts (eTOCs) and Advance Access alerts each time an issue or article publishes online. These alerts will include article titles, names of authors, and links to abstracts and full text. The combination of eTOCs and Advance Access alerts will allow readers to keep abreast of the latest developments in their fields in a matter of seconds. In addition, CiteTrack alerts will inform readers and researchers by email when new content (that matches criteria they have set up to track) publishes. CiteTrack will check chosen journals for words or subjects in new content, when key authors publish new articles, and when an article of interest is referenced by another article. All of these alerts are freely available by registering at: http://services.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/alerts/etoc#C.

4. 4. Social Forces will be hosted on a mobile-optimized journal site that offers quick...