th The Who’s Who in Fluorescence 2008 is the 6 Volume of the Who’s Who Series. The previous five volumes (2003 - 2007) have been very well received indeed, with 1000’s of copies being distributed around the world, through conferences and workshops, as well as through internet book sites. Recently, the WWiF Volume was th disseminated at the 10 MAFS conference in Salzburg, Austria. The Volume was very well received indeed. We subsequently thank Professor Otto Wolfbeis for help in disseminating the Volume at the MAFS venue. This new 2008 Volume features some 418 entries from no fewer than 38 countries worldwide, as compared to 405 entries (35 different countries) in 2007 and 366 entries in the 2006 volume, respectively. We have received 31 new entries this year, and deleted 18 entries that were not updated by contributors from past years. In 2007 some 106 AIM numbers were submitted and listed, 88 the year before. This year, the number submitted has risen again to 129 entries, greater than 30 % of all contributors. In addition, the Volume has a continued strong company support, which will enable us to further disseminate the Volume in 2008-2009. In this regard we especially thank the instrumentation companies for their continued support, where without their financial contributions, it is likely that the Volume would not be the success it is today. The new WWiF website was also launched in August 2007. The website features all the latest WWiF templates and submission information.

th The Who’s Who in Fluorescence 2009 is the 7 volume of the Who’s who series. The previous six volumes (2003 – 2008) have been very well received by the fluorescence community, with 1000’s of copies being distributed around the world, through conferences and workshops, as well as through internet book sites. In addition, the Institute of Fluorescence (http://theinstituteoffluorescence.com/) mailed 100’s of copies of the 2008 volume to contributors around the world. This new 2009 volume features some 419 entries from no fewer than 41 countries worldwide, as compared to 418 entries (38 different countries) in 2008 and 405 entries in the 2007 volume, respectively. We have received 29 new entries this year, and deleted 25 entries that were not updated by contributors from past years. In 2008, 129 AIM numbers were submitted as compared to 106 in 2007. This year the number has risen again to 136 AIM numbers submitted. This year we also see the introduction of the h-index number listing, a publication statistic provided by the Thompson’s ISI Web of Science. Some 42 contributors provided their h-numbers. In 2009 we also see a continued and strong company support, in light of the current world economic climate, which will enable us to further disseminate the volume in 2009– 2010. In this regard we especially thank the instrumentation companies for their continued support, where without their financial contributions, it is likely that the volume would not be the success it is today.

The Journal of Fluorescence’s fifth Who’s Who directory publishes the names, contact details, specialty keywords, and a brief description of scientists employing fluorescence methodology and instrumentation in their working lives. In addition, it provides company contact details with a brief list of fluorescence-related products.

The Who's Who in Fluorescence 2005 is the 3r volume of the Who's who series. The previous two volumes (2003 and 2004) have been very well received indeed, with many copies being distributed around the world, through conferences and workshops, as well as through internet book sites. In the last 2 years a great many of you have sent comments and suggestions, we thank you all. We have tried to accommodate many of these into the new 2005 volume. This new 2005 volume features some 382 entries from no fewer than 32 countries, an increase from 312 entries in the 2003 volume. In addition, we have a continued strong company support, which will enable us to further disseminate the volume in 2005. In this regard we especially thank the instrumentation companies for their continued support, where without their finical contributions; it is likely that the volume would not be the success it is today. We have introduced a new author publication statistic into this volume, the Author Impact Measure (AIM) number. While voluntary, this number is intended to reflect an author's progress in past years. The AIM number simply summates the impact number (from the ISI database) of Journals published in, in that year, multiplied by the frequency of those publications. From those who chose to participate, we can see most impressive AIM numbers, in some instances, greater than 80 for an individual year.

The Journal of Fluorescence's first Who's Who directory is to publish the names, contact details, specialty keywords and a brief description of scientists employing fluorescence methodology and instrumentation in their working lives. In addition the directory will provide company contact details with a brief list of fluorescence related products. Nothing like this has been published before for the Fluorescence field.

The Journal of Fluorescence’s fourth Who’s Who directory is to publish the names, contact details, specialty keywords, and a brief description of scientists employing fluorescence methodology and instrumentation in their working lives. In addition, the directory will provide company contact details with a brief list of fluorescence-related products. The directory will be edited by Chris D. Geddes and Joseph R. Lakowicz, editor and founding editor of the Journal of Fluorescence.

The Who's Who in Fluorescence 2003 volume was published in November 2002. It featured some 312 personal entries from fluorescence workers all over the world. Initially we were unsure how useful the volume would be. However, it wasn't very long before we were inundated with requests for both bulk and personal orders. In addition a significant number of copies were freely distributed at conference venues, such as at the Biophysical Society meeting in San Antonio. Texas, March 2003, and at the Methods and Applications of Fluorescence Spectroscopy conference (MAFS) in Prague, Czech Republic, August 2003, where these two venues probably host the largest gathering of Fluorescence workers anywhere. Even when we were initially taking e-mail based submissions, contributors were freely commenting on what a useful resource they saw the volume as being. We subsequently shared these comments on the back outside cover of the 2003 volume. As well as individual scientists supporting the 2003 volume, the Fluorescence based Companies also played a key role, where without their financial support, the volume probably would not have the impact it currently has. As such, the Who's Who in Fluorescence 2003 has been a much bigger success than we ever envisaged. Subsequently, we now present the Who's Who in Fluorescence 2004 volume. The new volume features 359 personal entries from 35 countries around the world. In addition we have increased company support, which should enable us to distribute more copies at targeted venues in 2004.