Photograph of Alan Wood

Alan Wood

www.alanwood.net

“Alan Wood” is quite a common name, so here is some information about the author of this Web site, just in case you are wondering if I am the Alan Wood you know (or used to know).

Employment

1997–2008 Justis Publishing Limited: designing and producing user manuals, Help files and Web sites for databases of case law and statute law.
1996–1997 CAB International: designing and constructing a 60,000-term, tri-lingual, classified thesaurus for agriculture; producing Windows Help files; editing user manual.
1986–1996 CAB International: quality control of the indexes and abstracts in the CAB Abstracts agricultural and biomedical database and the abstract journals derived from it; maintaining the CAB Thesaurus; converting manuals, reference works and databases into Windows Help files; editing user manual; designing data entry systems and bibliographic databases.
1971–1985 Commonwealth Institute of Entomology: indexing the agricultural and medical series of the Review of Applied Entomology; photographing insects for training courses and publication.
1970–1971 IBM London Data Centre: operating IBM System/360 mainframes.

University

1967–1970 University of Lancaster (major Biological Sciences, minors Chemistry and Environmental Science)
Lancaster Alumni Online

School

1960–1967 Glyn Grammar School, Epsom, Surrey (‘A’ Levels in Chemistry, Physics and Zoology)
1953–1960 Cheam Park Farm Infants and Junior Schools, North Cheam, Surrey

Interests

CDS/ISISWhile I worked for CAB International, I was an active user of Unesco’s bibliographic database, and provided assistance on the CDS-ISIS Listserv. Sadly, I have lost touch with recent developments.
MicroscopyI have had a proper microscope since I was in the 6th Form at Glyn. My interest was renewed by assisting on training courses at the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology, and again when retirement approached and I had more time and I joined the Quekett Microscopical Club. I have a Web site with information on attaching digital cameras to Olympus microscopes, and free downloads of brochures and instructions for older Olympus microscopes:
Olympus microscopes and photomicrographic equipment
PesticidesI have been a full member of the BSI and ISO committees that assign common names to pesticides since 1981. I was a corresponding member for a few years before 1981, and I was the Chairperson of the ISO committee (ISO/TC 81, Common names for pesticides and other agrochemicals) for several years. I created and maintained the Compendium of Pesticide Common Names until July 2021, when I transferred it to the British Crop Production Council.
PhotographyI used to spend a lot of time photographing insects, as a part of my job at the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology and as a hobby, and I used to give demonstrations of my techniques. I have started work on photographing the equipment and converting my handouts into 2 Web sites:
Close-up and Macro Photography for Entomologists
Olympus OM System Close-up and Macro Equipment
ThailandI have visited Mahidol University’s Faculty of Tropical Medicine in Bangkok (where my wife used to work) many times, and also LRDC at the Asian Institute of Technology and various agricultural research establishments.
UnicodeWhile looking for a Thai word processor and trying to find a reliable way of displaying Greek and mathematical characters in the Compendium of Pesticide Common Names, I found all sorts of information about Unicode characters, fonts, browsers and other programs. My records of this information developed into Alan Wood’s Unicode Resources, which is no longer being updated.

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Created 10th December 1996   —   Last modified 2nd May 2022

Alan Wood’s Web site