With the launch of Volume 30, Number 3, The Journal of Biocommunication (JBC) reaches a publishing milestone. The milestone marks the first full year of publishing electronically! We weathered a challenging year to arrive at this juncture, but it was a most rewarding one as well. From all accounts the readership is very pleased with the Journal’s ease of access and navigation, the quality of content, the proliferation of color, and now the ability to actually view the dynamics of motion media. As JBC moves forward with its mission of bringing the readership the best in biocommunication, these responses are very gratifying.

Mentioning our mission: JBC’s stated Mission, “The Journal of Biocommunication is dedicated to serving as a showcase of biocommunication techniques; describing proven and experimental procedures in medical art and illustration, print, photography, film, television, computer, multimedia systems, and other communication modalities applied in the health sciences.”

Starting with this issue, our Mission will be further achieved with the addition of a new offering—Showcase. Each Showcase will enable the hallmarking of selected biocommunication images. The images, solicited by invitation, will embrace all aspects of biocommunication including medical and scientific art, natural science art, biophotography, and motion media. Each Showcase will present the work of an individual biocommunicator and will serve to complement our Gallery features, the displays of award winners from our Associations’ annual competitions. JBC’s first Showcase will display the exquisite natural science images captured by Carlton Ward.

This milestone issue also shares three featured articles with such diverse topics, including a Web-based medication data base that supports the needs of both patients and health care providers; a collaborative effort among professionals in biomedical communications and forensics to visualize forensic evidence for courtroom presentations; and a unique, technical approach to capturing archaeological images utilizing cross-polarized lighting. In addition, the Gallery will display both still and motion media award winners from the BioCommunication Association’s BioImages competition. The Columns section will include a Viewpoint, promoting the 3rd World Congress of Medical and Scientific Imaging; and Scriptor, helping us relive the history a quarter century ago from within the Journal of Biological Photography. And finally, the Calendar and Association News will provide us with the latest updates on a variety of professional meetings and events scheduled for the year ahead. All in all, this milestone issue has something of interest for everyone.

And if that isn’t enough, the complete Volume 30 will soon be sent off to press as a singular printed compendium that will be mailed to you. The compendium will encompass the past year’s three Issues, reproduced in full color, in our traditional letter-sized format. So, whether you choose to browse JBC’s Web pages or read the printed compendium, you will have the complete Volume 30 for review. Either way, enjoy!

Bob Turner,
Chair, JBC Management Board
bturner@scripps.edu

Produced in the U.S.A. and © 2003/2004 by The Journal of Biocommunication, Inc. All rights reserved. This publication is supported by members’ and public subscriptions and is published online three times each year; a compendium issue is printed once each year.

THE JOURNAL OF BIOCOMMUNICATION is available to all paid members of the ABCD, AMI, BCA, and HeSCA. Other individuals and institutions are invited to subscribe: individuals at $36, libraries or institutions at $45, students at $32 per year.

Address subscription correspondence to:
Subscriptions: Ron Sokolowski
Eastern Business Service
39 Wedgewood Drive, Suite A
Jewett City, CT 06351
(860) 376-8150, fax (860) 376-6621

Direct editorial communications to respective association editors.
Managing Editor: Joanne Shaw
University of California, Irvine
P.O. Box 53202
Irvine, CA 92619-3202
(949) 533-0317

Association of Biomedical Communications Director (ABCD) Editor: Jackson Townsend
Director of Learning Resources
LSU School of Medicine
1542 Tulane Avenue – Room 703
New Orleans, LA 70112
(504) 568-4840, fax (504) 568-4843

Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) Co-Editor: Gary Lees
Johns Hopkins University, Art as Applied to Medicine
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
1830 E. Monument, St. Suite 7000
Baltimore, MD 21093
(410) 955-3213

Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) Co-Editor: Mark Lefkowitz
Biomedical Visuals
132 Oak Hill Dr.
Sharon, MA, 02067
(781) 784-5293

BioCommunications Association (BCA) Editor: Joe Ogrodnick
Entomology, NYS Ag. Experiment Station
Communications Services, NYSAES
632 W. North Street
Geneva, NY 14456
(315) 787-2324, fax (315) 787-2387

The Health and Sciences Communication Association (HeSCA) Editor: Karen Adsit
Walker Teaching Resource Center
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Department 4354
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga, TN 37403
(423) 425-4026, fax (423) 425-4025

Calendar and Association News Editor: Gary Schnitz
The Indiana Hand Center
P.O. Box 80434
8501 Harcourt Road
Indianapolis, IN 46280-0434
(317) 471-4446, fax (317) 471-4404

Management Board: Bob Turner, Chairman (The Scripps Research Institute) • Carol Asimow Gray (UCLA Medical Center) • Lee Potts (Merck Research Laboratories) • Ken Michaels (National Cancer Institute) • Gary Schnitz (Indiana Hand Center) • Gillian Duncan (Rochester, MN) • Bradley Smith (University of Michigan)

Webmaster: Michael Getz (Illumina Interactive, Boston, MA)

Editors: Each member association of The Journal of Biocommunication may select one Editor, whose responsibility it is to secure manuscript material and assure technical accuracy, validity, and usefulness of the Journal's content. Each Editor works with an Editorial Review Board selected by the sponsor association. Members of the Editorial Review Board critique and edit articles, and provide other editorial assistance, at the request of the Editor. The JBC accepts unsolicited materials for consideration. Unsolicited materials may be submitted to the Managing Editor or to any of the Association Editors for consideration. For more information, please see Contributors.

Editorial Review Board: Scott Barrows (Medical Art Associates) • Janis Brown (University of Southern California) • Susan G. Deihl (Virginia Commonwealth University) • Craig Gosling (Indiana University) • Christine Gralapp (Fairfax, Calif.) • Carol Asimow Gray (UCLA Medical Center) • Jamie Guth (Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center) • Winifred Hamilton (Baylor College of Medicine) • Tom Hurtgen (Duke University School of Medicine) • Dale Kennedy (VA Medical Center - Albuquerque, New Mexico) • Lori J. Klein (National Library of Medicine) • Dale Knorr (Naval Medical Center, San Diego, Calif.) • Gregory Lucier (University of Calgary) • Patrick Lynch (Yale University) • Steven Moon (Ohio State University) • Darisse Paquette (Tufts-New England Medical Center) • Stephen Pendry (Iowa State University) • Michael Peres (Rochester Institute of Technology) • Sue Seif (Seif & Associates.) • Bobb Sleezer (Christiana Care Health Services) • Herbert R. Smith, Jr. (Houston, Tex.) • Keith Stenehjem (Mayville State University) • Judy Tyler (National Student Nurses Association) • John Vetter (Pittsburgh, Pa.) • Susan Zimmerman (Wordcraft Communications)

Business Manager: Ron Sokolowski

Production Group: Michael Getz (Illumina Interactive)