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Editorial

[W. L. Duax]Crystal Growth Guru, Alex McPherson, generously agreed to provide the second in what I hope will be a series of comments on the state and future of all aspects of the fascinating multifaceted field of crystallography. I invite suggestions from all readers as to what topics should be addressed and by whom. I would be happy to hear from volunteers to write such articles.

The call for Papers for the Glasgow IUCr Congress accompanies this issue of the Newsletter. By now you should be checking out the Glasgow Congress website on a daily basis to keep current.

I wish to issue yet another appeal for contributions from countries in which there is a great amount of crystallographic activity, and almost no coverage in this Newsletter. The most glaring imbalance concerns the volume, quality and range of crystallographic research ongoing in Japan and Germany that we hear little about. If you are a Japanese or German crystallographer reading the Newsletter, I implore you to send information on crystallographic meetings (announcements and reports), awards and prizes received by crystallographers, brief reports on the history, current activities and future directions of crystallographic laboratories. Reports on some of these activities appear in the newsletters of the crystallographic associations of Japan and Germany, but I can't read either language. I need English translation of any or all of this material that I can edit for publication in this Newsletter. At present, 1000 copies of this Newsletter are distributed in Japan and 900 in Germany. We need to hear from those crystallographers.

Name that crystallographer!

Early volumes of the IUCr Newsletter contained contests related to papers published in Acta Cryst. Some readers who won contests and claimed their prizes have complained that these contests have been dropped. This issue contains two opportunities to win a copy of the latest volume of the Transactions of the ACA, Structural Tools in Organometallic and Coordination Chemistry. The first letters that identify the crystallographers in pictures on pages 9 or 21 will receive a copy of the Transactions. Anyone identifying the people in the picture on page 11 of the last issue (Vol. 6, No. 3) will also be given a complimentary copy of the Transactions.

Bill Duax
8 July 2008