Acta Clinica Croatica: progress of a journal step by step.

The journal Acta Clinica Croatica (ACC) was founded in 1962 under the title Anali Bolnice Dr. M. Stojanović. In 1995, the title of the journal was changed into its present form and ever since all papers have been published in English. In 2000, the electronic (online) edition of the ACC was released in addition to the print version. The paper presents development of the journal from 1962 to 2012 based on the analysis of the following SCOPUS citation index parameters: type and number of documents published in the journal; number of citations; and number of domestic and foreign authors. The studied period was analyzed in three time segments: the period from 1995 to 1999, the period from 2000 to 2006 and the period from 2007 to 2012. The same parameters were analyzed in the Web of Science/SCI-Expanded bibliographic and citation index for the 2007-2012 period. The increasing number of documents, authors (both domestic and foreign) and citations demonstrates gradual rise in the quality, visibility and impact of the journal. The fifty years of experience show that a goal, at first very distant and almost unachievable, may be reached by progressing step by step.