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

OPERATION OF ASU

By virtue of being published within JAAS, a primary journal with fixed publication schedules, the ASU production now operates within a tighter timetable than did ARAAS. This has exerted a salutary discipline on the authors of the reviews and on the publishing team! The titles of the initial 6 reviews reflect their ARAAS origin and were:- Environmental Analysis; Clinical Materials, Food and Beverages; Instrumentation; Chemicals, Iron, Steel and Non-ferrous metals; Atomization and Excitation; Minerals and Refractories. The change in the ordering of subject matter in ASU compared with the first issue of ARAAS reflects the greatly increased use of spectrochemical methods of analysis for the determination of elements in a wide variety of materials. After 18 years of publication the present day (2002) subject headings again reflect the continuing changes of emphasis that have taken place over that time with new sections devoted to “X-ray fluorescence” and to “Atomic mass spectrometry” being added and previous sections amalgamated, eg, “Instrumentation” was merged into “Advances in atomic emission, absorption and fluorescence spectrometry and related techniques” and “Minerals and Refractories” merged into “Industrial Analysis, metals, chemicals and advanced materials”.

Over the 18 years of its existence, 126 individuals have served on the ASU Board. Of its present membership of 35, 7 have served throughout this time providing valuable continuity. The regular flow of retiring and new members of the Board has provided the flexibility and stimulation which has ensured that ASU maintains its topicality and relevance to the analytical atomic spectroscopists. All those who have been members of the Board have played important roles in maintaining the continuity and the Scientific integrity of ASU. During that time there have been five chairmen: M. S. Cresser (1986), D. L. Miles (1989), A. T. Ellis (1995), J. Marshall (1998), S. J. Hill (2001), each of whom have shown great devotion to the publication and have introduced improvements to the administrative procedures and to the structure of the “Updates”.

The Board is constantly aware of the need to experiment with new ventures, for example, the preparation and collection of abstracts, which began as a manual system, is now successfully totally computerised and handles closer to 6,000 abstracts p.a. On the other hand, an experiment in the early 1990’s to make ASU abstracts available to scientists in electronic form was discontinued after a few years when it became clear that it was not going to be financially sustainable in the future. However, electronic publishing is a topic under regular review by the Board and, in view of the fluidity in that field, it may be that some day it will become the medium of choice. In the meantime (2003), an ASU web site is being set up. The Board is committed to improving the content and production efficiency of ASU and to reporting promising new developments in atomic spectrometry and in its applications for the benefit of the readership of ASU.

The Launching of ASU

Annual Board Meetings