Dear Readers:

Journal articles have traditionally been published in journals on an issue by issue basis. While this ensured organized citation information, it created boundaries for the timing of each published article. Online publishing now offers an opportunity to change, making it possible to publish citable articles with volume, issue and page numbers as soon as they’re ready – before an entire issue of the journal is finished.

Furthermore, readership styles and information gathering have changed quite considerably now that most people access articles online. Searching online for relevant articles is mostly done by key words, instead of browsing through journals’ table of contents listings.

To take advantage of these changes, we are introducing article-based publishing for the American Journal of Ophthalmology . This will make final and citable articles available online faster, and improve their discoverability . From now on articles will be published as soon as possible without waiting for an issue to be completed – they will appear in an “Issue in Progress”.