The legend of the KJU

Abstract

The Korean Journal of Urology (KJU) will change its name starting in 2016. Recently, the editorial board of the KJU had a spirited discussion about whether to keep the original name or change it to attract more international authors and readers of our journal. In 2014, approximately 60% of the papers submitted to the KJU were from outside of Korea, and the number of countries represented by authorship totaled around 20, reflecting that the KJU has become an international journal [1,2]. Furthermore, the KJU is currently indexed in major international databases, such as MEDLINE, PubMed, PubMed Central, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, and EBSCO. Therefore, the editorial board of the KJU and the council of the Korean Urological Association decided to open our gates internationally by changing the name of the journal in our 2015 Annual Meeting of the Korean Urological Association held in Seoul, Korea, on November 18th to 20th. Looking back at the history of the KJU, the official journal of the Korean Urological Association was first published as the 'Taehan Pinyogikwa Hakhoe chapchi' in 1960 and changed to 'Taehan Pinyogikwa Hakhoe chi' (ISSN 0494-4747) in 1979. It was renamed the 'Korean Journal of Urology' (print ISSN 2005-6737; online ISSN 2005-6745) in February 2009 to increase its exposure to a wider international audience. The cover design of the KJU has changed 3 times (Fig. 1). The journal title of the first and second edition of the KJU was in Chinese characters, which changed to Korean in the 3rd edition in 1998. However, the subtitles of the KJU were expressed as the Korean Journal of Urology in English from the 1st edition. In February 2009, the KJU changed its cover design and the title of the journal to English. Finally, the KJU became an English-language journal from the January issue of 2010. Fig. 1 The cover designs of the Korean Journal of Urology from the beginning to the current issues. In the age of high-speed internet and a rapidly changing world, we need to break down the walls of nationalities. Therefore, we found it a perfect time to change the name of the KJU. Even though the KJU will change its name starting in 2016, the editorial board and publisher will continue with the vision and volume number of the KJU. On behalf of the editorial board of the KJU, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the members of the Korean Urological Association and our international readers for their contributions to the KJU. We hope you continue to support and contribute to our journal. All the best!