Latenews July 2007

IMA Council meeting

The First Meeting of the 2007 Council of the International Mineralogical Association was held in the Seminar Room 1 of the Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, England, on Monday, June 25, and the Second Meeting, on Tuesday, June 26.
A summary of the council meeting minutes is available here.

IMA Council decisions:
The IMA council accepted that the Slovenian Geological Society joined IMA as the 39th mineralogical group. This group belongs to the Slovenian Geological Society and comprises 20 mineralogists. Meta Dobnikar, University of Ljubljana, is the National Representative. mail to Meta Dobnikar.
The IMA medal was shown to the IMA Council during the meeting. The IMA medal characteristics were accepted by the council.

IMA Medal Committee - A list of mineralogists from which the IMA Medal Committee members should be selected by the Executive Committee has been provided to the IMA council.

The relationships between the CNMNC and the RRUFF project was reassessed, as well as their respective role.

New IMA Council members, correspondent to IMA Commissions and Working groups have been named. Have a list of IMA officers and IMA Council correspondents.
A few mineralogical societies will be contacted for the organization of the 21th General Meeting of IMA. The site of the IMA general meetings since 1986 is available from a list of IMA meetings provided by the President T. Yamanaka.

IMA Outreach Committee

An IMA Outreach Committee (IMA-OC) has been created to enable IMA communication to the public, through publications of IMA scientific reports, delivery of IMA news, such as those reported in Elements, and through development of IMA websites and Internet database activities. These items will likely include many of the decisions of IMA commissionand working groups.
The outreach committee comprises IMA council members involved in communication, two chairs from the Commission on new Minerasl, Nomemclature and Classification, and the Commission on Museums, as well as external members. The final composition of the outreach committee will be given as soon as possible.

IMA Medal Committee

Members of the IMA Medal Committee will be named by the IMA executive committee from a list prepared by the IMA Council and shown during the IMA Council in Cambridge. The chair of the IMA medal Committee is Joel Grice.

Commission and Working Group news

New council correspondents were named for four Commissions and Working groups, namely

The IMA Council has been aware of difficulties encountered by IMA Commissions and Working Groups to publish their scientific activities. This is especially the case for the publication of scientific reports on minerals by the CNMNC. A solution is being negotiated with the main Mineralogical Journals and Council approved this action. It is Frances Wall’s responsibility, as the IMA Communication Officer, to provide an interface for reporting IMA activities to its members and the public. She will oversee the distribution of reports, including those of the CNMNC, to the various journals or web pages for their release. This is being done to coordinate and lessen the financial burden imposed upon the various journals.

Commission on Ore Minerals (COM): Federica Zacarrini is proposed to become Secretary of the COM (6/7/2007).
e-mail Federica Zacarrini.

Mineralogical society news

Bulgarian Mineralogical Society (BMS) (5/7/2007): The BMS comprises 48 members. The President is Ivan K. Bonev who is also the IMA National Representative. Updated composition of the BMS council is reported in the BMS webpage within the IMA website.

Spanish Society of Mineralogy (SSM) (11/7/2007): The Council of the Spanish Mineralogical Society was renewed in September 2006. The new President is Professor Manuel Prieto from the University of Oviedo, and is also the new National Representative, replacing Emilio Egalan who is warmly thanked for the help he provided to IMA.
mail to Manuel Prieto; mail to Emilio Egalan
The updated composition of delegates within IMA Commissions and Working Groups,is as follows:
Commission on Applied Mineralogy (CAM): Isabel Gonzàlez, University of Sevilla; mail to I.Gonzalez
Commission on Mineral Growth and Interface Processes (CMGIP): Carlos Pina; University of Madrid; mail to Carlos Pina
Commission on Gem Materials (CGM): Carlos de la Fuente, University of Barcelona; mail to Carlos de la Fuente
Commission on Museums (CM): Benjam’n Calvo, Polytechnical University of Madrid; mail to Benjam’n Calvo
Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification(CMNMC): Nicolàs Velilla, University of Granada; mail to Nicolàs Velilla
Commission on Ore Mineralogy (COM): Purificacion Fenoll and Fernando Gervilla, University of Granada; mail to Purificacion Fenoll ; mail to Fernando Gervilla

Working group on Inclusions in Minerals (WGIM): Salvador Morales, University of Granada; mail to Salvador Morales
Working group on Astromineralogy (WGA): Fernando Rull, University of Valladolid; mail to Fernando Rull
Working group on Environmental Mineralogy and Geochemistry (WGEMG): José Miguel Nieto, University of Huelva; mail to Jose Miguel Nieto

Greek Mineralogical Group (24/7/2007): Stefanos Karampelas is the new Greek delegate within the Commission on Gem Materials. e-mail to Stefanos Karampelas

IMA statistics

Statistical parameters recorded for the IMA website during the last twelve months (2007, July 23).

There is a significant increase of all the statistical parameters since January 2007, and in a more general way since the creation of the IMA website. For exemple, hits have increased in June, reaching 58 576, more than the highest record obtained in March 2007 (56 010 hits). Evolution of hits since the creation of the IMA website is shown in the figure below. There was a marked increase at the end of 2005. A new increase of the 'hit' number is also clear since the beginning of 2007.

The statistical parameters for the six first months of the year 2007 are compared with those of the preceeding years (2004-2006).

Annual variation of IMA website statistics
Sites Ko Visits Pages Files Hits

2004

5 months

21 1691 26 160 385 500

2005 574 143865 1208 3061 6544 9075

2006 2277 1364742 4176 11534 31776 41412

2007

6 months
2988 2357328 6345 14324 41755 54110

Numbers are calculated from monthly values. They represent statistical parameters for a month within a given year.
The 'Sites' number refers to unique IP addresses which made request during a month.
The 'Ko' number is kilobytes. This value shows the amount of data, in Kb, that was sent out of the local server per month.
Visits - If the time difference between two requests by the same IP address to the server is more than 30 minutes, the two requests are registered as two different visits. If the time difference is below 30 minutes, only one visit to the server is registered.
A 'page' is considered as any HTML document.
A 'file' is a document sent after a request to the server. It could be an HTML page or a graphic page, or a pdf document.
Any request made to the server which is logged , is considered a 'hit'.

There is a regular progression of all the statistical parameters since the creation of the IMA website. From 2004 to 2005, most of the statistical numbers were multiplied by a factor varying between 17 and 30. From 2005 to 2006, they were multiplied by a factor ranging from 3.5 to 4.9, except for the 'kilobytes' number which even show a stronger progression. From 2006 to 2007, the progression is still strong, and the numbers show a 20 to 30% increase, with again a stronger increase for the 'kilobyte' number. This means that the IMA website is more and more visited and that users are requesting documents available from the IMA website.