Blogs are a widely popular form of web journal that allow organizations and people to easily publish syndicated information on the Internet. There are blogs for all purposes, business blogs which companies use to communicate with their customers, personal blogs which individuals use to communicate with their friends, subject-specific blogs which allow people to discuss particular issues surrounding one subject. More information on blogs can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog.

Springer believes that blogs can be a useful tool in helping to facilitate and structure the communication that a community might have around a journal. For example, if your journal had a blog with the editorial board as editors they could:

• Discuss the editorial policies or direction of the journal
• Comment on trends seen emerging from the peer review process
• Make rapid announcements to the community
• Increase the connection between the community and your journal

Blogs are a public discussion area, they are a way of increasing the collaboration between researchers within the field. If you would like your Springer journal to have a blog, ask your Editor-in-Chief to contact their Springer publishing editor.