IIW History 1990-2015

for publishing the journal from 1 January 1999 with expectations raised that this would result in some savings. Difficulties, it must be said, did occur over the first year of the Secretariat taking on board the publication of the journal, with delays in distribution that were attributed to deficiencies in the material handed over by Elsevier, including circulation lists, which required a great deal of effort to put in good order and costs were higher than expected. The WG Publications , chaired by Dr Giulio Costa (Italy) was to take control of this situation by developing strategies for promoting and increasing sales of the journal that currently had only 200 subscribers and a circulation of 300 copies. 7 Previously the number of papers published in WiW , on a yearly basis was around 20 papers, which increased to around 35 papers after the journal was changed from its bilingual form to English in 1994. 8 A total of 250-300 technical documents were initially reviewed for publication of which about 30-40 were judged to be most valuable by the Working Units and recommended for inclusion in WiW. According to size (length) they were either published as journal articles or as a book, or booklet. 9 Even so, concerns still continued to be expressed

about the deteriorating status of the WiW journal . As a result WG Publications was then placed under the direction and guidance of the TMB in July 2003 with the intent of improving WiW’s image and circulation through proper marketing and planning, as well as arresting declining subscriptions. Subscriptions had become worrying in 2003 when income was reported to have fallen by 16% with a significant decline in profits. 10 The year 2005 also heralded a name change for the WG Publications to WG Communications (WG-COM), later

Veronique Souville

FOUNDATIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL COMMUNICATION In a further measure of its new path to excellence Mayer was to announce, rather proudly, that WiW had been published within its deadlines for the second consecutive year in 2007. This still did not disguise the fact that by 2009 WiW was what could be termed changed to WG Communications and Marketing (WG-COM&MARK), along with the appointment of a new Chair, Dr-Ing. Cécile Mayer (France), whose remit was to provide a new dynamic for the publication of IIW’s flagship, as well as a firm commitment to increase its status to a premier scientific publication. One of the immediate changes implemented by the Working Group was to increase the size of the journal to around 12 articles per issue. This had a corresponding effect on the number of articles published yearly and a workload that the publication coordinator within the Secretariat, Ms Véronique Souville, handled with charm and distinction.