




The World Directory of Crystallographers and of Other Scientists Employing Crystallographic Methods (WDC) is periodically published by the IUCr as a resource providing contact details and scientific interests of active crystallographic researchers.
Up to the 8th edition in 1990 only paper copies were produced but subsequently the situation changed considerably due to the rapid growth of computer networks. The 9th edition (WDC9) was the first one also accessible over the Internet. The entries were stored in the form of a database. Since the IUCr had by that time established its own format for crystallographic information, it was decided to use the same format, i.e. to store the data as STAR files (the same format used for Crystallographic Information Files, CIF). From these a qi database was created in 1995 to enable WDC to be interrogated through the Web and Tex files were created for the printing of the paper edition of the directory.
Internet use of the database has been very successful. The number of interrogations grew rapidly and a new relational database implementation was launched at the end of 2001. Since that time no hard-copy edition has been published.
Edition | Year | General Editor | Associate Editor/Regional Editors | Number of entries | Number of countries | Publisher | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1957 | W. Parrish | 2255 | 52 | North American Philips Co. Inc. | ||
2 | 1960 | D. W. Smits | 3557 | 54 | N. V. A. Oosthoek's Uitgeversmaatschappij | ||
3 | 1965 | D. W. Smits | G. Boom (Assistant Editor) | 5037 | 51 | A. Oosthoek's Uitgeversmaatschappij N. V. | |
4 | 1971 | G. Boom | N. A. Mulder-Hoekstra (Assistant Editor) | 6982 | 57 | A. Oosthoek's Uitgeversmaatschappij N. V. | |
5 | 1977 | S. C. Abrahams | A. L. Bednowitz | 7638 | 71 | Polycrystal Book Service | First use of computerised typesetting system (IBM TERMTEXT/Format) |
6 | 1981 | A. L. Bednowitz | 8174 | 68 | D. Reidel Publishing Company | ||
7 | 1986 | A. L. Bednowitz | A. P. Segmüller | 8968 | 69 | D. Reidel Publishing Company | Typeset with IBM Document Composition Facility (GML-SCRIPT) |
8 | 1990 | E. N. Maslen | A. L. Bednowitz | 9589 | 70 | Kluwer Academic Publishers | |
9 | 1995 | Y. Epelboin | G. Filippini,H. Hashizume, I. L. Torriani, W. L. Duax | 7907 | 72 | Kluwer Academic Publishers | First online database version: data collected in STAR format and typeset using ciftex |
10 | 1997 | Y. Epelboin | G. Filippini, H. Hashizume, I. L. Torriani, Y. Le Page | 7959 | 74 | Kluwer Academic Publishers | |
11 | 2001 | Y. Epelboin; from 2008 I. L. Torriani | G. Filippini, I. L. Torriani, K. Ogawa | First electronic-only edition; all data entry via Web |