Kevin A. Roth, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry, has published in the October issue an editorial about some of the changes coming to his journal.

An excerpt:
The Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry (JHC) is the official journal of The Histochemical Society (HCS), a not-for-profit organization devoted to the study of cell and tissue biology with molecular and morphological techniques (http://www.histochemicalsociety.org). The JHC publishes both in print and online. Our print publication began in 1953, and we began publishing online in 1997 through Stanford University’s HighWire Press. As a not-for-profit–sponsored scientific journal, we price our institutional subscriptions at a level compatible with our goal of making the JHC accessible to the general scientific community at a reasonable cost to their respective institutions.

He continues…
The single largest expense incurred in publishing the JHC is printing the journal. Although eliminating the JHC print version and moving to online-only publication would produce an immediate and dramatic cost savings, we feel there are legitimate and significant reasons not to completely abandon the print version of the journal at this time. Fortunately, there is a third option. Beginning in January 2009, the JHC will implement “print on demand.”

For the full text of this editorial go to: http://www.jhc.org/cgi/content/full/55/10/981

This is not an isolated case, society-sponsored journals are facing considerable strains across the board. Does your professional society produce a journal? How is it doing?