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5
The first edition of the History of the
International Union for Vacuum Science,
Technique and Applications (IUVSTA) had
been written by Dr. James M. Lafferty
at the occasion of the 30
th
anniversary of
the Union. In 2001 Prof. John L. Robins
produced a second edition, current up to
the year 2001, which was followed in 2004
by a triennial update which extended the
records up to the end of the 2001-2004
period. In 2018, the Union will celebrate its
60
th
anniversary and Prof. Anouk Galtayries,
the IUVSTA President-Elect for the 2016-
2019 period, asked me to update the
History of the Union.
Although written in 2018, the present third
edition of the History of the Union ends in
2016 as full records are not yet available
for the current 2016-2019 triennium. As
new activities could be accommodated
within the existing frame, the third edition
is organised in the same 18 sections as
the previous edition. Of course the history
of the Union up to 2001 has not altered.
Thus there have been no substantial
changes in the text covering the 1958-
2001 period and the various sections
have mainly been extended and up-dated
to reflect more recent developments.
However, sections 13 and 15 had to be
renamed to include new activities such
as the IUVSTA Technical Training Courses
and the IUVSTA-Elsevier Student Awards.
Moreover several tables have been added
to reflect more precisely the Union activity.
My main source of information to update the
History has been the minutes of the General
Meetings and of the Executive Council
Meetings. I thus wish to express my sincere
gratitude to the IUVSTA Recording Secretary,
David E. Sykes, who kept careful records of
these meetings from 2004 to 2016. I also
found some complementary information in
the Division and Committee reports and
thanks are also due to the various people
who produced these documents over the
years. Finally I am thankful to my friend and
colleague Anouk Galtayries, who supplied
me with missing information related to the
most recent period. Nevertheless I take full
responsibility for any error or omission left in
the present document.
Of course, the Union is constantly moving
forward and its development did not stop
in 2016. Further information on its recent
and future activities can be found on the
website:
www.iuvsta.org.
M-G. Barthés-Labrousse
Paris, France
April 2018