8. DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION
The IUPAC web site (http://www.iupac.org)
has been greatly expanded over the biennium. In January 1998, the
site was moved from the Royal Society of Chemistry server to the Metalabs
facility at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA).
This move included the establishment of the Union's own Domain Name.
The Metalabs facility has a high-speed connection to the Internet
(it is part of the Internet backbone) and a set of large, high-speed
servers. Response time is excellent, even for overseas locations.
The number of visitors to the site has increased from fewer than 3000
in March 1998 to more than 16000 in February 1999. Three mirror sites
are currently active: the RSC in the UK, SUNSite Germany, and SUNSite
Japan. A mirror site in China is being set up through the kind offices
of Prof. Zhang, an elected member of the Bureau.
The web site not only contains all the material in the IUPAC
Handbook, but also includes a list and description of the
current projects
being worked on by IUPAC Commissions and Committees, current contact
information for members of IUPAC bodies, a complete list of IUPAC
publications (including book ordering information), title pages of
recent issues of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and the complete
text of recent issues of Chemistry International. In addition,
a number of Commissions have either established "Home Pages" on the
IUPAC web site or moved existing Home Pages to the IUPAC site. These
Commission pages give detailed information about the work of the
Commission. An example is mentioned below, the African Network for
Valorization of Plant Materials.
