Published six times a year, Acta Orthopaedica makes all 420 issues published between 1930 and 2010 available free on the Internet, without any cost to authors. As the current editors—Anders Rydholm and Olle Swensson—noted in their “birthday” editorial, “the Internet is the stage for science. Searchability and swiftness make up for the nice-looking leather-backed volumes that have been around since 1930.”
Published 7/1/2010
The official publication of the Nordic Orthopedic Federation, Acta Orthopaedica is currently celebrating its 80th year of publication. Originally called Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica, the international journal was first published with abstracts in three languages (English, French, and German).
Articles range from case reports to randomized clinical studies and include national and multinational register studies as well. In its 80th anniversary issue (June 2010), Acta Orthopaedica includes a number of articles that reflect its history, including a “look-back” at the treatment of displaced femoral neck fractures since 1930, “the inside story” of the Swedish Hip and Knee Arthroplasty Registers, and a classic article from 1960 on arthroplasty of the knee using an endoprosthesis.
Retaining their forward-looking perspective, the editors write, “What is really important, though, is what future readers, bloggers, twitters, hackers, crackers, or whatever, will think. There is only one thing one can be sure of, and that is that it will be different.”