It is time to move on. With this issue, I wrap up three years of editing the Journal of Asian Studies, and turn the reins over to incoming editor Jeffrey Wasserstrom of the University of California, Irvine. To borrow from the slogans of the current presidential campaigns in the United States, I hope I have helped bring about changes that you can subscribe to. Thanks to our association's recent partnership with Cambridge University Press, JAS is now available online and in print. During 2007, the first year of our partnership, institutional subscriptions jumped from 1,625 to 2,675, with huge gains in Europe (196 to 647) and Asia (266 to 660). We are seeing, too, significant use of Cambridge Journals Online to access recent JAS articles and reviews, augmenting the steady use of JSTOR as a gateway to browsing or downloading past issues.
In the meantime, article submissions have climbed to more than 250 annually; nearly half come from authors in Asia. Articles are now accompanied by abstracts, and do far more than ever before in featuring visual materials and helpful online links. The strong flow of publishable manuscripts has made it possible to present articles as “companion pieces” that address thematic or topical rubrics, some with a comparative, cross-regional slant. I believe, too, that Jeff Wasserstrom will continue our series of occasional articles on intellectual trends, legacies, and comparative discussions in Asian studies. With his vision and energy, and his commitment to innovation, JAS is sure to remain the leading journal in our field. Jeff also will bring a sure and experienced hand to the journal's rudder as we negotiate the challenges and opportunities posed by new information and publishing technologies—such as “open access” and the digitization of all issues of JAS back to its inception in 1941 as the Far Eastern Quarterly.
Editing JAS has deepened and broadened my understanding of Asian cultures and histories, and I am grateful to the many authors and manuscript referees for their probing studies and critical commentaries over the past three years. Members of the Editorial Board from 2005 through 2008 were instrumental in broadening the scope and depth of our journal, too, and I thank them here for their superb counsel and judgment in reading manuscripts and selecting books for review.
Our Managing Editor, Jennifer Munger has done a brilliant job of shepherding authors, reviewers, editors, and office assistants through the process of submission, review, and publication over the past three years. I can't thank her enough. Our graduate editorial assistants, Jennifer Jenkins and Steve Krause, brought extraordinary energy and insight to troubleshooting and coordinating our sprawling book review operation. The gains that our journal has made over the past three years owe much to Mark Zadrozny, Ella Colvin, Edward Carey, and Susan Soule at Cambridge University Press. I thank them for their unflagging helpfulness and responsiveness. Officers and members of the Board of Directors of the Association for Asian Studies, and colleagues who joined me on the Digital JAS Task Group (Beth Berry, Michael Duckworth, Paul Kratoska, and Peter Perdue), offered tremendous advice and support as we moved into a publishing partnership with Cambridge University Press.
Finally, I thank the College of Letters and Science, the Graduate School, and the International Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for their assistance. The Center for Southeast Asian Studies was especially supportive, and its administrative assistant, Mary Jo Studenberg, cheerfully helped us negotiate the university's bureaucratic terrain. The Center for East Asian Studies; the Center for South Asia; and the Center for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia also made it possible for us to host the journal's editorial offices.
