IUCr forums

Following on from Marv Hackert's comments at our inaugural informal meeting at the Congress, I have been giving some thought to the best way to manage 'transient' information (i.e. that concerned with the events of the International Year itself - meetings, competitions, exhibitions...) and the more lasting content, primarily educational, that we hope to amass. I suggest that the 'permanent' content be collected together in a segment of the website that can stand alone (and replace the IYCr 2013 site after the International Year has finished).

As an initial suggestion, how about naming this 'permanent' content 'All About Crystallography', and arranging it in ~ 5-6 sections:

• The sciences of crystallography (explaining what crystallography is in the context of geology, chemistry, biology, material science, mathematical group theory etc)
• The techniques of crystallography (introductory explanations of diffraction and Bragg scattering, and illustrations of laboratory equipment and large-scale facilities)
• The beauty of crystallography (with examples of crystal forms, tiling patterns, the type of material in the Ars Crystallographica booklet, etc.)
• The people in crystallography (short biographical sketches of 20 or so particularly noteworthy scientists, chosen in part to illustrate thematic approaches such as 'Nobel prizewinners', 'women in crystallography')
• The history of crystallography (Marv's idea of a timeline along which can move a slider that zooms in on the details of scientific and social progress at any particular period sounds to me like an excellent idea to develop).

Where necessary, of course, the 'All About Crystallography' site can point to related content already on the main IUCr site, such as the information about all the Nobel Prize winners at http://www.iucr.org/people/nobel-prize

Dear Brian

I think that the structure you propose is excellent, and should form the start...
There will still be opportunities to introduce some revisions at a later stage.

Thanks again for all your work

Sine