A brief historical account of the background leading to the publication of the first four editions of the World Directory of Crystallographers was presented by G. Boom in his preface to the Fourth Edition, published late in 1971. That edition was produced by traditional typesetting methods from compilations of biographical data prepared by national Sub-Editors. The major effort required to produce a directory by manual methods provided the impetus to use computer techniques for the Fifth Edition. The account of the production of the first computer assisted Directory was described by S.C. Abrahams in the preface of the Fifth Edition. Computer composition, which required a machine readable data base, offered several major advantages. The choice of typeface and range of characters was flexible. Corrections and additions to the data base were rapid and, once established, it was hoped updating for future editions would be simple and inexpensive. The data base was put to other Union uses, such as preparation of mailing labels and formulation of lists of crystallographers with specified common fields of interest. The Fifth Edition of the World Directory of Crystallographers was published in June of 1977, the Sixth in May of 1981. The Subject Indexes for the Fifth and Sixth Editions were printed in 1978 and 1981 respectively, both having a limited distribution.

This outline of statistics as an aid in decision making will introduce a reader with limited mathematical background to the most important modern statistical methods. This is a revised and enlarged version, with major extensions and additions, of my "Angewandte Statistik" (5th ed.), which has proved useful for research workers and for consulting statisticians. Applied statistics is at the same time a collection of applicable statistical methods and the application of these methods to measured and/or counted observations. Abstract mathematical concepts and derivations are avoided. Special emphasis is placed on the basic principles of statistical formulation, and on the explanation of the conditions under which a certain formula or a certain test is valid. Preference is given to consideration of the analysis of small sized samples and of distribution-free methods. As a text and reference this book is written for non-mathematicians, in particular for technicians, engineers, executives, students, physicians as well as researchers in other disciplines. It gives any mathematician interested in the practical uses of statistics a general account of the subject. Practical application is the main theme; thus an essential part of the book consists in the 440 fully worked-out numerical examples, some of which are very simple; the 57 exercises with solutions; a number of different compu tational aids; and an extensive bibliography and a very detailed index. In particular, a collection of 232 mathematical and mathematical-statistical tables serves to enable and to simplify the computations.

The 9th edition of the World Directory of Crystallographers and of Other Scientists Employing Crystallographic Methods, which contains 7907 entries embracing 72 countries, differs considerably from the 8th edition, published in 1990. The content has been updated, and the methods used to acquire the information presented and to produce this new edition of the Directory have involved the latest advances in technology. The Directory is now also available as a regularly updated electronic database, accessible via e-mail, Telnet, Gopher, World-Wide Web, and Mosaic. Full details are given in an Appendix to the printed edition.