A New Year and a New SN

 

January is a time for fresh starts, and this year at SN we’ve really taken that to heart. If you’ve looked closely at the cover or paged through this issue, hopefully you’ve noticed the changes. We’ve not only redesigned the magazine, giving it a fresh and inviting new look, but considered many aspects of SN’s mission, from its content to its frequency.

In a process begun early last year, ASTM staff set out to examine how SN could be reshaped into a publication that better reflects the needs and interests of its readership today. The result is the magazine you are reading now.

So, what has changed and what has remained the same? In addition to the look of the magazine, we’ve adjusted content in ways we think will engage all our readers from cover to cover and eliminated material better accessed online. We’ve created three new columns: EnRoute, where you can find practical how-to’s on the details of developing ASTM standards; InFocus, which highlights useful ASTM products; and ProVocative, an interview format where we tap into the thinking of people involved in the pressing issues of standardization today (this has been replaced this month with Richard Kayser’s chairman’s interview). Our feature articles, which were frequently about quite specific technical topics, are now easier to read and broader in scope, so that all readers can benefit from valuable information on issues in standardization and stories of how ASTM International standards in particular benefit governments, industries, consumers and global trade.

We are still covering the activities of ASTM’s greatest asset — its membership — in the renamed Update and Community sections, which cover technical committee activities and member milestones, respectively. We’ve taken out the two big lists that used to be found at the back of the magazine, Calendar and Standards Actions, because that information can be found in more current form online. To help you find that and other Web material, we’ve created “Online,” which you can see just opposite and that directs you to helpful information at www.astm.org.

All of this has been packaged into a bimonthly magazine (that is, published every two months), which has been augmented by a monthly electronic newsletter, the first of which I hope ASTM members have already received via e-mail. This editorial model allows us to leverage the Internet to continue to provide you with timely information about committee and society activities while leaving the most substantive content for a six-times yearly print magazine.

That’s it in a nutshell. I hope you will take time to review this issue and let me know what you think. My contact information is below. Happy New Year.

Maryann Gorman
Editor in Chief