The ILA believes that education is a key factor in the successful implementation and use of laboratory automation and computing systems. It's courses are designed to help laboratory management (at all levels), those working in the labs, and Information Technology Professionals make the best use of automation and computing technologies.

This is the space used for product descriptions. There is room for 1200 characters, including spaces, but the point is just to give you an idea of what 1200 characters looks like. The submission form text entry field has a counter that counts characters entered and cuts off when the magic number of 1200 is reached. Twelve hundred is an interesting number, and as I'm typing this I began to get the feeling that 600 would have been a better choice (451 characters to the end of choice). This is getting a bit dull but I still have more than half the count to go.

According to infoplease.com, the years 1200-1204 covered the fourth crusade... by the time I finish typing 1200 characters, I may go on one of my own... The same source said that Genghis Khan invades China, captures Peking (1214), conquers Persia (1218), invades Russia (1223), dies (1227). Not only do we cover lab automation, but history. How do you feel about 900 characters? In 1241, Mongols defeat Germans in Silesia, invade Poland and Hungary, withdraw from Europe after Ughetai, Mongol leader, dies. We'll miss him.

You can probably say a lot in 1200 characters, more than I expected, and we are running out of spac