IJVS Volume 1 Edition 1 - editorial

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Editorial

Oh no! I hear you say – not ANOTHER journal! Well – the INTERNET JOURNAL OF VIBRATIONAL SPECTROSCOPY is unique – a periodical initially planned to appear six times a year, aimed to assist you, the user of vibrational methods, hopefully full of useful information and discussion – and FREE.

Geoff Dent and myself perceived some time ago that many people who use vibrational spectroscopy, frequently and on a routine basis, are equipped with very little background information. At university or college they may have had very little formal instruction in infrared spectroscopy, probably even less on near infrared and Raman, and have had to pick up bits and pieces as they go along.

When I was a student in the 50’s, infrared and Raman were hot issues and we were taught about them thoroughly, but since then the centre of interest has moved to NMR or mass spectrometry so that now we teach little or nothing about infrared or Raman at the undergraduate level and haven’t done so for a long time. The IJVS is aimed at helping to fill the gap.

Each edition will carry three or four feature articles of graded sophistication. The first two are fairly basic and cover relatively routine but crucially important matters such as sampling or sample preparation, good laboratory practice, spectral interpretation, or basic data processing. The remaining articles are more specialised and most readers will find that they contain information new to them.

In addition to news items, we then include two unusual offerings – The Spectroscopists Bookshelf – suggestions of books to have handy or ones containing really useful information, and the other we call Hot Sources. How often has someone asked you to recommend a reference which explains the infrared spectrum of this or the vibrational behaviour of that? Well, Hot Sources will be the answer as the database builds up and it will be simply and reliably machine searchable.

To complete each edition we then offer contributed articles, but these are not like those in any other journal. The idea is to offer papers with real novelty on subjects with a reasonably broad interest, carefully written and edited to make them easy to read. We want these articles to describe a development and to provide routes to more detailed information for those who are interested – sort of micro reviews. You won’t find a contribution on “Fermi Resonance as a possible explanation for the multiplet structure…”, but you may well find something on new methods of sampling or the quantitative analysis of an important pharmaceutical. Much of the material in which we are interested will have appeared, or is about to appear, elsewhere; the Editorial team will encourage authors to offer an appropriately revamped, snappier version for us.

One of the advantages of Internet publication is speed. We plan to process manuscripts exclusively by electronic means – e-mail or FAX – and will avoid snail mail.

It is almost inevitable that there will be hitches in transmission, or problems with the quality of reception and downloading. You will also have comments about the journal itself or want to raise an issue for discussion.

Please give us a shout – send an e-mail or FAX – even telephone. We really MUST hear from you, the readers, and we promise to respond however rude you are!

So – please print the Journal and read it at your leisure. We hope you will find it useful and easy to read.

PATRICK HENDRA.