For the last thirteen years, the Chicago Section of the Society for
Applied Spectroscopy has sponsored a symposium in the spring of each
year. In this span, the symposia have shown a steady increase in
attendance, in the number of papers presented, in the number of
sessions, and in the number of days the conference lasted. The duration
of the most recent sym- posium was four days, with sessions devoted to
molecular spectroscopy, including infrared, Raman, ultraviolet, and
visible, and to X-ray, NMR, emission, and flame spectroscopy,
respectively, with a special session devoted to gas chroma- tography
because of its growing interest in applied spectro- scopic work. Another
feature of this last symposium was the attempt on part of the Symposium
Committee to establish and maintain the scientific level at that of
applied physics. This should place the present symposium at a level
somewhere between that of the Ohio State symposium and that of the
Pittsburgh meeting, thus approaching the level of applied chemical
physics. In addition, the symposium was designed to offer to sci-
entists from other disciplines and students an opportunity to attend
introductory panels and lectures and at the same time the mature
investigators a meeting ground and the chance to keep abreast of the
latest developments in spectroscopy. How well these aims have been
accomplished is best attested to by the phenomenal growth of the
symposium.