Peer Review and the Public

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) publishes two of the major journals in astrophysics. Our journals account for about 30% of the peer reviewed articles published each year in the discipline. Among the challenges faced by the AAS journals program is the recurring scholarly concern about whether we conduct peer review appropriately. In recent years, we have had to confront assertions that pre-publication peer review is no longer needed. We continue to believe that peer review more or less in its current form is essential to good scholarship, and it is one of the foundations on which the formal scholarly record rests.