As the member of the Subcommission once again given the responsibility for compiling and producing this publication, my task in editing the 2nd edition, which has taken well over a year, has been somewhat easier than editing the 1st edition.

This is due to several facts. Firstly, I was not directly involved in any of the working groups; secondly, only minor editing had to be done to the Glossary; and thirdly, improvements in computer technology – in particular e-mail which, with over 450 transmissions, enabled me to obtain quick responses to my editorial queries with colleagues around the world. However, the occasional phone call to speak to another human being also made life more bearable and speeded things up.

This edition has been much easier to produce than the 1st edition, which was produced from photo-ready copy. That involved printing the entire book on a Laserwriter and sending large parcels of paper to the publishers. To produce this edition all I have had to do is to generate PDF (Portable Document Format) files which I have then sent to the publishers by e-mail. The book was then printed directly from the PDF files by the printer – a much simpler task!

The software used to do this included Adobe PageMaker®, for editing the entire text and producing the PDF files; Adobe Illustrator® for producing all the figures and tables; and FileMaker Pro® for maintaining the relational databases of rock descriptions, references, journal names and contributors.