| ASSESSING THE NEED FOR RAMAN SEARCHABLE DATABASES
A survey conducted by LGC LGC is the UK’s largest independent analytical laboratory - it aims to provide independent, impartial advice across the analytical community. Raman spectroscopy is one of the themes of the Analytical Innovation programme, which is managed by LGC and funded by the DTI. The aim is to promote the awareness of Raman within industry and to identify barriers to its use and overcome them. As well as addressing issues such as availability of impartial advice, access to instrumentation for feasibility studies and calibration, it is believed that one of the key problems is the lack of Raman spectral libraries. LGC has been in discussion with several industrialists, academics, instrument vendors and Sadtler, the leading producer of searchable spectral databases (IR, NMR etc.) on this issue. The indication is that there is a perceived need for libraries but no one has any idea how big the market place may be, hence no one is producing libraries on a large scale, in an organised fashion, for use by the wider Raman community. Thus LGC is conducting a survey to establish the extent of this need and also to get a clearer indication of the sort of databases Raman users would like to see. Once the survey has been completed the results will be collated and published. If the response is large enough and there is a clear indication of which libraries would be most useful, it is hoped that collaborative partnerships would be set up to facilitate the collection of spectra. Sadtler will then turn the raw data into a searchable database similar to those produced for IR. If you can, please take the time to complete this short survey (in full or in part) either on screen and send electronically, or print it off and return by fax it, as soon as possible, to Dr. Andy Brookes,
Thanks must go toIRDG, IJVS, PE, Bio-rad, Renishaw and Spectroscopy Europe for their help in distributing this survey. Many thanks, Andy Brookes, LGC |
