A History of the Origins of “Atomic Spectrometry Updates"
(cont.)

THE FORERUNNER

The importance of the early ASG activities to ASU is two-fold, first they were the means of launching the “Annual Reports on Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy” (ARAAS), the predecessor of ASU, secondly they brought together a group of like-minded, dedicated and enthusiastic individuals who created a tradition of commitment and camaraderie which is still the prime motivation of the Board of ASU.

The publication of ARAAS came about as a direct consequence of the highly successful International Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy Conference held in Sheffield in 1969. The Conference was organised by the ASG of the SAC and the Spectroscopy Group of the Institute of Physics and Physical Society under the chairmanship of J. B. Dawson. As a result of the enthusiasm (and profit!) generated by the success of the Conference, the ASG under the chairmanship of W. J. Price looked around for future projects to utilise the enthusiasm and international goodwill generated by the Conference. They concluded that some form of international publication would best meet the needs of the atomic spectroscopy community. A journal working party under the chairmanship of G. F. Kirkbright recommended that the interest in and great rate of developments in analytical atomic spectroscopy and its applications merited an annual publication devoted to reviews of progress in the field. Such a publication would be designed to assist the analytical chemist to keep abreast with his subject and reduce the need for extensive personal literature searches. The proposal for such a publication was put to the Council of the SAC who welcomed it and agreed to support the project for a trial period of 3 years. The publication, which was to appear annually in book form, was entitled “Annual Reports on Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy”.

The first volume of ARAAS was published in Summer 1972 and reported on developments during 1971. The Editorial Board consisted of 37 members, 19 of whom were from overseas; the Editor was D. P. Hubbard and the Chairman of the Editorial Board, J. B. Dawson. The “Reports” was based on over 1,000 abstracts supplied by Board Members. The subject matter was presented under the broad headings of:

1. Fundamentals and Instrumentation with sub-divisions of: Light Sources, Excitation Sources and Atomizing Systems, Optics, Detector Systems, Data Processing, Complete Instrumentation and Ancillary Equipment.
2. Methodology: General Techniques (Sample preparation, evaluation), Applications (Metals, Petroleum and Petroleum Products/Refractories and Metal Oxides/Medicine/Environmental Studies/Minerals/Soils, Agricultural Products/Chemicals).

Where appropriate, tables were used to condense and clarify information and then, as now in ASU, the publication details were presented in the reference list.

The book was a success and publication continued under the aegis of the AD of the Chemical Society from 1974 and of the AD of the RSC from 1979 following the unification of the Societies. However, in later years, the increased number of abstracts (about 2,500 annually) led to delays between the appearance of papers and publication of their reviews of sometimes more than a year, with the consequent loss of topicality. Further, the hardback book format adopted by the RSC was expensive to produce and difficult to market. These factors prompted the ARAAS Board under the chairmanship of B. L. Sharp to look for ways of preserving the ARAAS publication in some other form.

Origins

The Launching of ASU