Workshop: Information on Radiation Protection

On 16 June 2000, a workshop dealing with information on radiation protection, ably organised by Lars Persson, was held at the Swedish Radiation Protection Institute (SSI) in Stockholm. The principal aim of this workshop was to bring together the editors of European journals, magazines and newsletters to discuss how information on radiological protection could be better disseminated among practitioners, with emphasis on the role played by publications. Thirty people from across Europe, representing ten publications, attended the workshop. Each editor was asked to give a brief presentation on his/her publication as an introduction to the meeting before a series of talks on aspects relevant to radiological protection publishing. Jack Valentin spoke on ICRP information activities, particularly the development of the website, followed by Eddie Goldfinch on the effects of citation indexing and subject classification systems. Eddie pointed out that all radiation protection related titles had been removed from Current Contents listings, clearly a detrimental development, and that citation indexes often possessed features that were somewhat perverse. He also noted that it was not obvious where to find papers on radiological protection in current subject classification systems, a situation that should be rectified.

Geoffrey Greenhalgh spoke on attitudes, beliefs, uncertainties and risks followed by Richard Wakeford on the role of journals in radiation scares and Klaus Becker reflecting on radiation protection publishing. The all-important subject of radiation protection information using the internet was addressed by Peter Hill. Rupprecht Maushart then led a discussion on how information could be more effectively exchanged between editors, and one aspect that emerged as desirable was the exchange of contents lists, which has taken place between this Journal and its French sister, Radioprotection, for a while. A list of website addresses for radiological protection publications will be given in the next issue of the Journal. Michael Clark gave a talk on dealing with the media and then Lars Persson dwelt on electronic developments at SSI-News. Rupprecht Maushart led a further discussion on how to improve radiation protection information generally.

Finally, a general discussion was led by Michael Clark. Not surprisingly, the electronic revolution in publishing was discussed, which is inevitably going to lead to profound changes in journals and the way that information is published and accessed. Some distinction will have to remain between peer-reviewed high-level papers and more general articles, if only to provide some filter for scientists already overloaded with information. It was concluded that better information exchange between editors would assist those involved in radiological protection, and future meetings were thought to be desirable, possibly linked to IRPA Congresses.