EDITORIAL

Increasing scope of meetings Close relationship of educational

exposition and courses add content

The evolution of the scientific and technical meeting has been gradual, or even slow, and

there are demands for greater information availa­bility and transfer. While experiments have been tried, and some quite successfully, with different structures for meetings, the scientific or technical society meetings are mostly of a standard pattern. Programs of papers have been organized and presented with minor variation. Such has been the case with ACS meetings.

Some advances have been made during recent years to improve or enhance educational value of ACS meetings. One of the outstanding forward steps has been the institution of short courses to bring chemists and chemical engineers up to date in areas of important rapid advances. At the Miami Beach meeting, in addition to seven courses given in direct classroom style, a filmed four-hour course on infrared spectroscopy will go by closed-circuit television to the rooms of some 30 hotels.

At the Miami meeting another step will be taken to add scope. An educational exposition has been organized as an integral part of the meeting under the management of the ACS. As a special innovation, 45-minute seminars will be

presented by exhibitors of instruments to provide an organized, active program of detailed informa­tion on services available through new instru­ments and new techniques. On the floor of the show, more than 70 exhibitors will present before the chemical public their newest and best prod­ucts and equipment of value to the chemist and chemical engineer.

To bring students into contact with the exhibi­tion in a way that will give them perspective and understanding, the ACS Florida Section is encour­aging high school and junior college chemistry teachers to bring groups of outstanding students to the exposition. Members of the Florida Sec­tion will conduct orientation seminars to prepare the students for guided tours that will follow.

This ACS meeting probably will offer more channels for transmission of information useful to chemists and chemical engineers than has any of its predecessors.

MARCH 6f 1967 C&EN 5