The ChemKrist working group considers its most important task to be both educating young scientists in courses and summer schools and organising ambitious scientific conferences on selected topics. For this reason, we have long organised an annual summer school or a "workshop conference"; since the "Year of Chemistry", we have even been offering both with great success. While conferences for experienced colleagues have been taking place for some time, we have been organising a summer school for young scientists entitled "Fundamentals of Single Crystal Structure Determination" at Hardehausen Monastery every two years since 2000. Here, experienced tutors teach participants the basics of X-ray structure analysis. In addition, the Kiel workshop on "Errors, pitfalls and problems in single crystal structure analysis" has now become firmly established. It is primarily aimed at advanced doctoral students who attended the summer school in Hardehausen the year before and, by solving practical examples, continues the tradition of the Göttingen workshops led by George M. Sheldrick 20 years ago.
To complement this type of training, we have now began writing "educational pamphlets" on important crystallographic topics. These short papers are aimed at advanced undergraduate or postgraduate students; they deal mainly with the problems that can arise during a crystal structure determination and introduce some new developments. The educational pamphlets are not intended to (and cannot) replace textbooks, but facilitate a quick introduction to the specialised literature. They are not original works, but rather "translations". The authors have endeavoured to prepare recent publications in journals or chapters in current textbooks that are difficult to understand in such a way that they are comprehensible for "beginners".
This series will initially start with a few selected topics, but will be continuously supplemented and (if necessary) updated. I would be delighted if everyone saw it as an enrichment - and used it.
