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The journals of the International Union of Crystallography have grown in size and number over the past 60 years to match developments in scientific practice and technique. High quality of publication has always been at the forefront of editorial policy and ways in which this has been achieved are described. In particular, the development of standard exchange and archive formats for crystallographic data has allowed the editorial office to conduct automated analyses of structural data supporting articles submitted for publication and these analyses assist the scientific editors in careful and critical peer review. The new information technologies of the Internet age have allowed the IUCr journals to flourish and to provide a wide range of powerful services to authors, editors and readers alike. The integration of literature and supporting structural data is of particular importance. The new technologies have also brought fresh economic and cultural challenges, and offer completely new opportunities to disseminate the results of scientific research. The journals continue to respond to these challenges and take advantage of new opportunities in innovative ways.

The proposed crystalline phase identifier consists of a number of components (layers) describing enough properties of the phase to allow a unique identification. These layers consist of the chemical formula, a flag indicating the state of matter, the space-group number and the Wyckoff sequence. They are defined in such a way that they can be incorporated into the IUPAC International Chemical Identifier (InChI) proposed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).