MyMRs: Map your Magnetic Resonance stuff!

Due to the widespread diffusion of magnetic resonance (MR) equipment, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of all the magnetic resonance instrumentation available in a country. Paradoxically, while a high number of recent and less recent instruments may be present in a country area, they are often unknown to the occasional user (and sometimes even to some specialists), because of lack of communication within the scientific community. The problem may be exacerbated by thewell known “bad practics” of letting information spread only within groups of “homogeneous” scientists, so that – so to speak – chemists talk only to chemists, physicists to physicists and so on.As a step toward the solution of this problem, the GIRM (the Interdivisional Group of Magnetic Resonance of the Italian Chemical Society) has begun a project called MyMRs (http://www.soc.chim.it/gruppi/girm/mymrs), based on the well known Google maps, by which the MR instruments are graphically displayed as placeholders with different colors (yellow = NMR spectrometer,red = relaxometer, green = EPR spectrometer, blue = MRI equipment). All relevant information is obtained from the MR community through a form connected to a spreadsheet via the “Google docs” web site, converted to KML format with a simple BASH script and eventually shown in a baloon when a placeholder is clicked. The authors – who are member of the GIRM board – thank all Italian and foreign collegues who will want to provide data about their MR equipment.