Folks,
I am bothered by the number of requests in the Rietveld is mailing list
for copyright-protected data that I see crossing the ether. Particularly
since most of the requested data comes out of the ICSD database. The
ICSD database is available at a reasonable price to both industrial and
academic users. [IMHO it is the only non-biological crystallographic
database that can make that claim, with the possible exception of the
NIST Crystal Data database :-)]. The ICSD is available for as little as
600 DM ($US 400) per year for individual academic users (see
www.iucr.org). With nearly 50,000 structures, that is a lot of data for
the money.
I am sensitive to the fact that research money is tight. But compared to
the costs of journals, books, x-ray tubes, travel, registration fees,...
this is a pretty small cost. I suspect that most institutions can afford
a copy of this database to put on a single PC, if not a copy on a
intranet WWW server using the ILL software (as we do).
If the data are freely traded on the web and only a few people buy the
collection, the database will be exorbitant. If no one buys it, it will
not be produced. I see this as both a matter of self-interest for the
crystallographic community and one of scientific integrity.
Brian
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Brian H. Toby, Ph.D. Leader, Crystallography Team
[EMAIL PROTECTED] NIST Center for Neutron Research, Stop 8562
voice: 301-975-4297 National Institute of Standards & Technology
FAX: 301-921-9847 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8562
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