Micobeam Analysis Journal from the 1990s

[John Donovan]

Does anyone remember the Microbeam Analysis Journal?  It was published by San Francisco Press back in the 1980s and 1990s but if one does a search in Google Scholar no papers from that journal show up. For example, when I enter

"J. J. Donovan, D. A. Snyder and M. L. Rivers, "An Improved Interference Correction for Trace Element Analysis" Microbeam Analysis, 2: 23-28, 1993"

It shows one link to a pdf on John Fournelle's web UWisc pages and one link to to a pdf on Probe Software's web pages. But no links to the journal itself (yes the journal was pretty much published before the Internet was invented if that can be imagined!).  The only thing I can find in Google on the journal itself is this:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/microbeam-analysis/oclc/7246538

Now back when I was a director on the MAS board, I recall discussions on obtaining the rights to this journal (someone had spoken to the widow of the publisher apparently), and there was a vote to proceed with scanning these volumes and getting them on the Internet. Does anyone remember who was tasked with this effort?  Is any progress being made? 

We really should try to avoid losing more than two decades of published microanalysis papers I should think!

[wonachlas]

I found this website that describes the journal Microbeam Analysis: The Official Journal of the Microbeam Analysis Society being published from 1992-1995.

https://speciation.net/Database/Journals/Microbeam-Analysis-New-York-;i383

Our library has two books with articles from Microbeam Analysis. First book contains Sep1992-Dec1993 and second book contains 1994-1995. See photos below. Let me know if there is a specific article you would like, the library offered to scan one for free.

[Probeman]

I found this website that describes the journal Microbeam Analysis: The Official Journal of the Microbeam Analysis Society being published from 1992-1995.

https://speciation.net/Database/Journals/Microbeam-Analysis-New-York-;i383

Our library has two books with articles from Microbeam Analysis. First book contains Sep1992-Dec1993 and second book contains 1994-1995. See photos below. Let me know if there is a specific article you would like, the library offered to scan one for free.

I also have all the back issues myself.  If I already know the article I want, I will just look it up in my back issues.

What I *want* is to be able to search for these articles on Google Scholar, first to locate articles that I may have forgotten about, and second so I can share a link to a pdf of that article with others.

There was a council motion maybe 10 years ago to get these Microbeam Analysis back issues scanned and on Google Scholar but that seems to have faded away.  Who was looking into this and why haven't they completed this task?

[Nicholas Ritchie]

Around the time he retired, David Bright scanned a large set of old Microbeam Analysis Society proceedings.  He scanned the old EPASA meeting proceedings starting in 1966 and when EPASA became the Microbeam Analysis Society he scanned those until 1993.  So we have a full set of meeting proceedings which, a couple of days, ago  I uploaded them to the Internet Archive. I've created a page on the MAS website https://the-mas.org/historical-microanalysis-meeting-proceedings/ with links to each of these.

Now for 1994 and 1995,  for these years we switched from the small company "The San Fransisco Press" to VCH (which is now VCH-Wiley).  About a decade ago someone on the MAS council asked the widow of the founder of the San Fransisco Press about whether we could scan and share these proceedings.  As I recall, she said yes.   Nothing ever happened.

VCH is another story.  They don't seem to be available on the web but we don't have permission to share them.  Since they are a large company with nasty lawyers I'm a hesitant to just scan, upload and link to them.

In 1996, the MAS returned to San Fransisco Press for one year.  (I haven't uploaded/linked this yet but I plan to.)

In 1997, the MSA and the MAS created the Microscopy and Microanalysis Journal which published our proceedings and maintains them online (for free!)

There may be additional subtleties that I haven't fathomed yet related to MSA meetings vs MAS meetings.  I just notice that there are two distinct 1993 proceedings - the San Fransisco Press one online is the MSA meeting and there is also a VCH one for a distinct MAS meeting.  I guess this was before they were joint meetings.

TLDR;
1966-1993 are available here: https://the-mas.org/historical-microanalysis-meeting-proceedings/
1994-1995 are troublesome
1996 will he available at https://the-mas.org/historical-microanalysis-meeting-proceedings/ when I get around to it... 

[John Donovan]

Now for 1994 and 1995,  for these years we switched from the small company "The San Fransisco Press" to VCH (which is now VCH-Wiley).  About a decade ago someone on the MAS council asked the widow of the founder of the San Fransisco Press about whether we could scan and share these proceedings.  As I recall, she said yes.   Nothing ever happened.

VCH is another story.  They don't seem to be available on the web but we don't have permission to share them.  Since they are a large company with nasty lawyers I'm a hesitant to just scan, upload and link to them.

Hi Nicholas,
Thank-you for an update on this effort. Much appreciated!

So on the 1994-1995 publications you say the widow of the founder gave us permission to scan these issues, but that hasn't been done because you're worried about VCH-Wiley.

Has anybody just asked VCH-Wiley if they could scan these back issues for us and make them publicly available? 

Or failing that, can we simply ask VCH if we can scan these two years and make them publicly available for scientific use?

You know what they say: if you don't ask, you already know the answer!     

[Nicholas Ritchie]

The other way around - 1993, 1994 and 1995 are VCH - and we don't have permission (like we do from the founder of San Fransisco Press' widow).

Yes, you are right about asking.