In his introductory comments last issue, JF contrasted the history of the Wilson Ornithological Society with that of the American Ornithologists' Union and Cooper Ornithological Society, which now have merged into the American Ornithological Society. He noted how the AOS was instituted by small groups of professional ornithologists associated with universities and museums, while the WOS was more an amalgamation of laypeople whose passion for birds was more avocational than vocational. The first publications of the WOS did not even appear in the societies' own journal; rather, the earliest WOS authors published in The Oologist. When the WOS inaugurated its own publication in 1984, it was given the seemingly nonacademic name of The Wilson Bulletin. Not until 2006 did the WOS publication become the more impressive-sounding Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
The measure of value for a scientific journal for the past few decades has been the “impact...