Dear Readers (Volume 5 Edition 1)

We have heard recently from Noel Franck in Pau, that beautiful city in France.

Would it be possible to have a little database of spectrum? I am especially interested in those of gases in near infrared (organic compounds).

I don’t know of one, but the Atmospheric Community have been interested in this field for years so there ought to be something. Can anyone help please? Please contact Noel directly at franck.noel [at] caramail.com and don’t forget to copy the IJVs office.

We had a ‘funny’ in from Lars Markwort…

I saw the following warning label at MIT’s Junior Lab:

“WARNING: DO not look into laser with remaining eye”

Tom Perrone has emailed from the States and suggested some new areas for us.

Is there a plan for a review of:
1. sampling accessories for i.e. FT-IR, FT-Raman, FT-NIR?
2. building a robust spectral library (combining FT and dispersive data)?
3. chemometric analysis (tutorial and applications)?

I will look into these and respond in the next edition. Oh and thanks for your kind words about the Journal. It makes all the difference to us hearing you’re enjoying IJVS.

Some more flattery and a response to my Soapbox from Gabor Keresztury in Budapest.

Congratulations! This seems to be the right way of providing essential and highly useful information for practicing spectroscopists in an easily accessible way. On the funny side: Although I tend to side with American spelling (which should certainly be further rationalized), I enjoyed reading your Editorial Soapbox hugely and fully understand your standpoint.