Editorial

Starting with this, the 2016 January issue, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (PASP) is now published by the Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing. We at PASP are very excited about this new partnership and are looking forward to IOP Publishing's energetic and progressive management of PASP's publishing needs. We believe that IOP Publishing's partnerships in rapidly developing physics communities, such as those in Asia and South America, will broaden PASP's exposure within the international astrophysical community. We would also like to thank the University of Chicago Press (UCP) for publishing PASP for the past 17 years.

This transition has allowed us to make a number of significant upgrades to PASP that we believe will benefit authors, referees, and readers:

• New Article Management System: Since 2015 September 26, new manuscripts for publication in PASP have been submitted to our new IOP Publishing–managed article processing system. New articles should be submitted online at http://iopscience.org/pasp. Furthermore, note that articles submitted on or before 2015 September 25 will continue to be handled by UCP at http://asp.edmgr.com. This includes revisions to papers submitted before 2015 September 26. Once these articles are accepted for publication, they will be transferred to the IOP Publishing–managed article processing system for copyediting and publication.
• New Article Categories: In addition to our traditional list of article categories:
  • Regular Research Articles
  • Invited Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • Astronomical Instrumentation, Telescopes, Observatories, and Site Characterization Articles
  • Conference Summaries
  • Dissertation Summaries
  PASP will offer two new article categories:
  • Topical Reviews: Scholarly work that presents the mature development of an area of astrophysics. Topical reviews should be reasonably exhaustive in citations and bibliography, but should not be considered a monograph intended for a restricted community of specialists.
  • Special Issue Article: Invited articles which will form a special collection of papers on a specific theme. This article category creation formalizes our commitment to publishing special issues, which we started in 2015 July with the publication of a special issue on the JWST-MIRI instrument and continues with the current special issue on JWST's planetary science capabilities.
• New Page Layout: We have modernized our page layout, which we believe will make PASP articles easier to read.
• Open Access Options: PASP now offers open access options to authors who would like to publish their articles as free to read and reuse immediately upon publication. See http://iopscience.iop.org/pasp/page/open_access_information for further information.
• Video Abstract Capabilities: Authors can now publish video abstracts of their accepted articles. Video abstracts have been used with other science journals to increase the visibility of a journal's authors and their work. Through video media authors can go beyond the constraints of the written article to convey their research and provide a new, enhanced user experience for PASP's global audience. Furthermore, authors can use video abstracts to enhance a reader's understanding and appreciation of an article through the accessible presentation of the main results and conclusions reported in an article. To maximize reader engagement and visibility, authors are encouraged to combine footage of themselves with other relevant material of interest, such as imagery or animations. Video abstracts might be particularly appealing to young researchers who are interested in broadening their visibility to a wider audience of their peers. See the Video Abstracts section of the PASP author instructions at http://iopscience.iop.org/pasp/page/instructions_for_authors for further details. Examples of video abstracts, from IOP Publishing's New Journal of Physics, can be found at http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/videoabstracts.

Let me close by reiterating my request for your input and ideas for material that you would like to publish or see published in PASP. In particular, I welcome your ideas for review or tutorial articles, as well as other comments or suggestions that you might have.