GK> It's as well a measure of energy as eV or Hz are. They're all
 GK> called "energy equivalents" and are valid in their context.
 GK> Have a look at
 GK> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/factors.html

I see that they do indeed list a conversion between inverse meters and
joules, so I guess I'll have to stand corrected.  I don't like it, though. 
It's sloppy.  It's possible to have several different waves, all with the
same wavenumber, and each having a different energy.

 HT>> I know for a fact that researchers who routinely work in
 HT>> units of wavenumbers THINK of the wavenumber as an indicator
 HT>> of the amount of energy.  They can get away with that
 HT>> because it works for them in that one specialized area.
 HT>> When these researchers publish their work, they do not use
 HT>> the wavenumber as a measure of energy.

 GK> Well, I don't know from where you get your facts.

When I worked in solid state physics (as a grad student) we routinely used
the cm^-1, but I don't recall ever having seen it referred to as a unit of
energy.

Nowadays, though, I read journals like TPT, AJP, and Physics Today.  None
of them ever refer to the wave number as a measure of energy, at least as
far as I can recall.  Certainly none of the the introductory physics
textbooks do it, either.

As I said, though, usage differs in specialized areas.

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