今天收到国际晶体学联合会主席Gautam R. Desiraju发来的邮件，得知联合国宣布2014年为国际晶体学年的消息。Gautam R. Desiraju指出：

    宣布2014年的国际晶体学年（IYCr）给我们大家提供了一个极好的机会去保持和重启我们对这个杰出学科的承诺。它使我们走到一起，不管我们认为自己是晶体学家、或是物理学家、化学家、生物学家和大量使用晶体学及其相关技术的材料科学家。

    我们的（晶体学）是一个非常古老的学科，在一百多年前把它的研究重点从晶体转向结构。今天，这个学科正准备对动力学和性能的研究。所有健康的科学探索都能够重建和改造，晶体学是这方面有重要意义的例证。

    我希望每一个人利用这个机会，激发和点燃学生、科学家和公众对晶体学的兴趣。

    由联合国宣布2014年的国际晶体学年是为晶体学的最好代言，晶体学经受了时间和潮流的考验，继续蓬勃发展。这标志着晶体学具有持续不断的文化相关性，并且，这是在这个充满政治和社会动荡和不断的经济变数的瞬息万变的世界中开展科学的最恰当的理由。

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因为担心自己的理解和翻译不当，以下附上原文：

Dear fellow crystallographer,

This is to communicate the excellent news that the United Nations has declared that 2014 will be the official International Year of Crystallography.

The initiative had been proposed by the International Union of Crystallography and spearheaded by the Moroccan Crystallographic Association.They have worked closely with the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Morocco in the United Nations along with helpful support from a number of delegations to the United Nations from other countries. The IUCr thanks the Moroccan authorities for the help and cooperation extended to us in bringing this proposal to fruition.

The declaration of IYCr 2014 provides all of us with a wonderful opportunity to sustain and renew our commitment to this outstanding subject. It has brought us together, whether we consider ourselves as crystallographers, or as physicists, chemists, biologists and materials scientists who work extensively with crystallography and its related techniques.

Ours is a very old subject, which shifted its emphasis from a study of crystals to a study of structures over a hundred years ago. Today, the subject is poised towards a study of dynamics and properties. All healthy scientific endeavour can recreate and reinvent: crystallography is a meaningful example of this.

I would like each and every one of you to use this opportunity to stimulate and ignite an interest in crystallography amongst students, scientists and the general public.

The declaration of IYCr 2014 by the United Nations is the finest endorsement for a subject that has weathered time and tide and continues to thrive. It signifies that crystallography has continuing cultural relevance and, in the end, this is the only justification for carrying out science in this rapidly changing world with its political and social flux and constant economic variables.

I will write about IYCr 2014 in more detail in the IUCr Newsletter but, in the meantime, I would ask all of you to participate in this happy occasion.

Gautam R. Desiraju
President, International Union of Crystallography