As many of you may know, Spectroscopy Europe is celebrating its 35^th anniversary in 2010. It was first published, as European Spectroscopy News, in 1975. After an appeal earlier in the year, I have been able to obtain copies of almost all issues (issues 36 and 38 are missing, so if you have them ...) thanks to Alan Boyd of Heriot-Watt University: Alan, I am extremely grateful. This enables us to start digitising some of the content of these old issues, what I intend to call the “ESN Archive”. This will be built up as time permits to include all articles, interviews, columns and items that seem of particular relevance or importance.

The first item in the “archive” is the very first ESN interview, with one of the greats of European spectroscopy: Professor Sir Harold Thompson. This is absolutely fascinating, providing first-hand accounts of scientists such as Schrödinger, Einstein and Planck.

If you would like to request a particular article to be prioritised or would like to add your own memories of ESN or spectroscopy in an earlier time, please do so by adding a comment below. I think this could build into a fascinating account, so please do take a few minutes to contribute. (Please note that all comments are checked before they are published to avoid inappropriate offerings, so there will be a short delay before your comment appears live.)