EDITORIAL Atomic spectrometry updates The birth of JAAS and that of Atomic Spectrometry Updates are inextricably linked. When the idea of a new RSC analytical journal was first mooted by Professor John Ottaway in 1983 it was felt that it would be highly desirable to include within it the material which up to then had been published in book form as Annual Reports on Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy (ARAAS). This strategy had the twin merits of differentiating JAAS from most of its competitors by the inclusion of regular authoritative reviews and of reversing a trend of rising costs and declining sales which was beginning to threaten the hardback editions of ARAAS. A combination of primary papers and well targeted reviews was felt to be a winning formula for the new journal- as history has subsequently shown.Elsewhere in this issue John Dawson and John Price tell the story of ARAAS. For 14 years it fulfilled an important need in the atomic spectroscopy community. It was on this sound foundation that Atomic Spectrometry Updates (ASU) was able to build retaining much of the structure philosophy and above all the hard working team of ARAAS. JAAS six comprehensive critical and authoritative annual reviews of both The aim of ASU is to provide within fundamental and applied aspects of analytical atomic spectrometry. The combined scope of the six Updates closely matches that of JAAS. The coverage of individual updates is reviewed from time to time as new techniques or applications come to prominence to ensure that they reflect current trends. For example in 1991 the Updates covering Instrumentation and Atomization and Excitation were reorganized into Atomic Emission Spectrometry and Advances in AAS and AFS and Related Techniques.Currently in addition to these two Updates the structure is Atomic Mass Spectrometry and X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry 6 N Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry January 1995 Vol. 10Environmental Analysis Industrial Analysis Metals Chemicals and Advanced Materials and Clinical and Biological Materials Foods and Beverages. schedule by a group of authors that operates on its own annual cycle and organizes its work accordingly. The abstracts on which the reviews are based are generated by Board Members themselves although in recent years because of shear pressure of numbers more reliance has had to be placed on authors’ abstracts and those generated by abstracting services such as Analytical Abstracts and Chemical Abstracts.A measure of both the wider coverage and increased workload of ASU is shown by the fact that in 1986 the total number of abstracts was 2039 compared to 4131 in 1993. In addition to papers in the primary literature ASU also includes in its coverage relevant conferences. Although the information contained in many conference abstracts may be limited- and here on behalf of ASU authors I make a plea for a higher information content in abstracts submitted to conferences-the timely publication of Each review is written to a very tight conference programmes via ASU provides an up-to-date picture of current research in a particular field which I know many readers find particularly helpful.The overseas members of the ASU Editorial Board make an especially valuable contribution by being our eyes and ears throughout the world providing proceedings of conferences that are held in their regions and also by covering foreign language journals. For the first ten years of its life all aspects of the ASU organization from abstract generation through collation and dissemination to writing the Updates have depended entirely on the dedicated efforts of the Editorial Board. The scale of the operation is now such that the databasing aspects of it are being transferred to Thomas Graham House. The generation of abstracts and the preparation of the Updates themselves continues to be undertaken by the Board members. Advances in information technology in recent years have opened up great opportunities in scientific publishing.The RSC has recently launched JAASbase which makes available in computer readable form the ASU bibliographic database. Further innovations such as putting the information contained in ASU tables or even the abstracts themselves on CD-ROM are being actively considered. Feedback from many sources over the last decade has shown that ASU plays a significant role in the success of JAAS. I will shortly be vacating the Chair of the ASU Board which I have felt very privileged to occupy for the past six years. Having joined originally as a junior member of the ARAAS organization in 1981 and having served as Review Co-ordinator and subsequently as General Editor I can testify to the enormous dedication camaraderie and sheer hard work of all the members of the ASU Editorial Board and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to them. I look forward confidently to the successful future of ASU under the Chairmanship of Dr Andrew Ellis as I do to the next ten years of JAAS! DOUG MILES Chairman ASU Editorial Board Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry January 1995 Vol. 10 7 N