tury, in the 1960s, when the Cold War between the Unites States and the Soviet Union stimulated the development of new communication technologies for military purposes. In 1969, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) introduced ARPAnet, enabling the exchange of information between the computers of different American military units. With the decline of political tensions between these two powers in the 1970s, university researchers who had worked on military projects for the American government were provided access to this technology. In 1989, the researcher Tim Berners-Lee developed the fundamental instruments that allowed a restricted network to be transformed into a universal vehicle for the exchange of information. In 1994, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications developed the first browsing program for the net, X Windows Mosaic 1.0, which was equally decisive for the popularity of the network and has now been modernized. In a short period of time, the computer network became the most democratic and powerful instrument of exchange, sharing, and continuous flow of information worldwide. The total number of Internet users is currently estimated to be 1.7 billion. The number of Brazilians who have home access to the worldwide computer network is approximately 22 million.

The history of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology on the Internet began in 1999 when it was still known as the Journal of Pulmonology. That was the year in which it was indexed for the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO). This initiative, which resulted from a partnership between the Biblioteca Regional de Medicina (Bireme, Regional Medical Library) and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, Foundation for the Support of Research in the State of São Paulo), which were aided by the collaboration, since 2002, of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), has proven to be of critical importance to the dissemination of the scientific production of various Latin American countries, especially Brazil. The full content of the Journal of Pulmonology, now the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology, has been available on SciELO Brazil since the publication of issue 6 of volume 25 (1999). In 2006, our Journal was indexed for Medline in 2006, after which the English-language abstracts of our articles were made ­available on the PubMed site. The full-text, English‑language versions of the articles are available via SciELO, or, indirectly, from the PubMed site. On the SciELO Brazil site, one can find a variety of statistics related to the number of times that Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology articles have been accessed. One notable statistic is the annual number of articles accessed:

 2005: 118,305
 2006: 226,790
 2007: 470,405
 2008 (through October): 563,060

The homepage of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology (www.jornaldepneumologia.com.br) has been online since mid-2004, when activities to develop an electronic publishing management system were initiated. This system is now in place and has made the process of evaluating articles submitted to the Journal considerably easier and faster. In addition, the site contains complete information regarding the Journal, together with author guidelines for the submission of articles in Portuguese, English or Spanish. Articles can be reviewed using electronic forms, which are now also available in fully translated, English-language versions.

All issues published since 2004, including special supplements and conference abstracts, are available for download directly from the Journal homepage. The full-text versions of regular issues of the Journal, in Portuguese and in English, are available at no cost. Data related to the number of times that articles are accessed via this site are automatically sent to SciELO for statistical analysis.

The available data indicate that the mean number of visitors per day to the homepage has increased significantly over the years: from 341 in January of 2006 to 688 in January of 2007, 1,451 in January of 2008 and 2,510 in October of 2008. The highest mean number of visitors per day to date was 3,861 (in July of 2008).In 2008, through the end of October, the total number of visitors to the site was over 800,000. This number should exceed 900,000 by the end of the year. Although 62.1% of the 2008 visits were from within Brazil, visits from other parts of the world, especially from Latin America, are becoming more common. Between January and October of 2008, the most common types of sites from which visits originated (excluding those originating from within Brazil) were as follows:

 19.2%: no entry (unidentified IP)
 7.3%: .net (network addresses, most likely from the United States)
 6.5%: .com (commercial addresses, likely from the United States)
 2.9%: .pt (registered in Portugal)
 0.2%: .in (registered in India)
 0.17%: .tr (registered in Turkey)
 0.15%: .me (registered in Mexico)
 0,125: .chi (registered in China)
 0.09% .vie (registered in Vietnam)

This is equally relevant that, during the same period, the total number of accesses from .net, .­com, .edu, .gov, and .org addresses, all of which were most likely to have originated from the United States, was 112,015, or 13.8% of the total. The number of times that the English-language content of the Journal was accessed was 194,992 for html files, and 25,813 for pdf files. The data reported here clearly illustrate the considerable international penetration of the electronic version of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology. Due to this greater international presence, an increasing number of articles are being submitted from abroad, especially from Portugal, but also from Turkey, Egypt, India, etc.

Although the content of recent issues is easily accessed via SciELO and on the Journal site, our readers might occasionally need to search for older issues. These older issues are available in most medical school libraries in Brazil. However, they can now also be accessed online. The full content of all issues of the Journal of Pulmonology and the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology is now available for free via Google Book Search.
In addition to the obvious convenience, this measure has allowed us to display everything that has ever been published in the Journal, since its creation, to an international audience.

The online version of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology is not intended to replace the traditional print version, the monthly reading of which is a ritual for all members of the Brazilian Thoracic Society. The print version is one of the most important links between the Brazilian Thoracic Society and its members throughout Brazil. Nevertheless, it is the electronic version that ensures that the Journal reaches levels of dissemination never before achieved, at low cost and with no relevant environmental impact. The improvement of the electronic version is certainly the best way for us to build a truly international publication, with a recognized identity and containing articles that are cited in studies published in renowned scientific journals.

We are fortunate to live in new times, when electronic communication rapidly spreads knowledge, shortening distances and bringing people, and peoples, closer together. In this scenario, the outlook for the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology can be nothing other than positive and grand.

Happy 2009!


José Antônio Baddini Martinez
Associate Professor,
Division of Pulmonology,
Department of Clinical Medicine,
Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto
da Universidade de São Paulo - FMRP/USP,
University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto
School of Medicine - Ribeirão Preto, Brazil.
Editor-in-Chief of the
Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology