PERSPECTIVES A brief history of the journal(s) of the SEM: staunchly resisting

As we mentioned at the end of the first article of this brief history [9], International Microbiology, the new journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology (SEM), started in 1998. During the first 3 years of publication, this journal was produced by the Spanish branch of Springer-Verlag, located in Barcelona, where the editorial office of the journal had resided since 1994. Francisco Ruiz Berra-quero, SEM president in 1998, was very helpful in the establishment of the contract with the new publisher; and the journal soon recovered its publication pace. In 2001, however, Springer-Verlag gave up publishing journals or books at its Spanish branch; and, since then, Interna-tional Microbiology has been produced by Springer-Verlag in Heidelberg, Germany. Although the format of International Microbiology differs greatly from the pre-vious SEM journals (Fig. 1), it has kept their general structure, with several distinct sections. Editorials are usually written by experts who are requested to give their own opinion on the field in which they work. The Editorial Board was enlarged and now, for each field of expertise, there are both a Spanish and a foreign member. The most characteristic physical feature of the journal is now its cover, which integrates the different groups of organisms studied in microbiology: viruses, prokaryotes (either Bacteria or Archaea), protists and fungi. A picture of each group is always present on the cover throughout the year. In the middle, there is a round, actual Petri dish-sized, full-color picture related to an article in that issue. Color has also been introduce