While it is not difficult to find data in many cases, what advice can you get on the quality of the data retrieved? Chemical Information for Chemists could help with this problem and more. This book is a chemical information book aimed specifically at practicing chemists. Written and edited by experts in the field, it is ideal for chemists who lack a chemical information professional able to teach basic and intermediate techniques in retrieving and evaluating information using the unique entry points of the chemical literature, including structure, formula, substructure, and sequence. Aimed at students on undergraduate and graduate courses, it could also be a useful guide to new information specialists who are facing the challenging diversity of chemical literature.

Chemical Information for Chemists

A Primer

By Judith N. Currano, Dana L. Roth

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Copyright © 2014 The Royal Society of Chemistry
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84973-551-3

Contents

I. Introduction,
Chapter 1 Introduction to the Chemical Literature Leah McEwen,
II. The Primary Literature,
Chapter 2 Non-Patent Primary Literature: Journals, Conference Papers, Reports, Abstracts and Preprints Dana L. Roth,
Chapter 3 Chemical Patents Michael J. White,
III. The Secondary Literature and Specialized Search Techniques,
Chapter 4 Searching Using Text: Beyond Web Search Engines Andrea Twiss-Brooks,
Chapter 5 Searching by Structure and Substructure Judith N. Currano,
Chapter 6 Physical Properties and Spectra A. Ben Wagner,
Chapter 7 Commercial Availability, Safety, and Hazards Dana L. Roth,
Chapter 8 Searching For Polymers Donna T. Wrublewski,
Chapter 9 Reaction Searching Judith N. Currano,
Chapter 10 A Practical Primer to BLAST Sequence Similarity Searching Diane C. Rein,
Subject Index,

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to the Chemical Literature

LEAH MCEWEN

Cornell University, Physical Sciences Library, 283 Clark Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-2501, US

Email: lrm1@cornell.edu

1.1 CHEMICAL INFORMATION THREE WAYS: THE BIG PICTURE OF BIG INFORMATION

I recently welcomed a new group of chemistry graduate students with an orientation to the library at Cornell University. We started with a discussion of the role of literature in research, focused on the scope of specific library resources and services available, and highlighted a few key things the students could do right away to get started with their research. The idea was to funnel the vast world of chemistry-related literature into something bite-sized and immediately useful while not losing sight of how much is possible and how important robust literature research is to chemistry. We hope this book will accomplish something similar: provide a highly useful volume for a broad range of information-related needs across the chemistry research process. In this introduction, we hope to cover both the big picture of how information fits into the chemical enterprise and a few useful things to keep in mind when delving into the literature.

To begin, we will consider the ways in which literature is involved in the research process, how scientists are involved in the production and consumption of this literature, and the role of information providers and the library. The scholarly communication cycle is at the core of the scientific endeavor for both research and teaching purposes and is standard practice across the disciplines. Published literature is the lasting product of scientific research. It captures and documents the ideas, methods, results, implications and applications of projects and makes this information available to the broader research community and society to further research developments, grants, products, marketing, competitive advantage, etc. It is important for researchers to determine exactly when in their research process to disseminate their findings to the community and which of the many available avenues of communication is most appropriate. These decisions are influenced by place of work (academic, government, industry), job level, and practices in various chemistry sub-disciplines. The resulting published literature in chemistry is as varied and complex as the science it represents, and includes articles, patents, technical reports, conference proceedings, book chapters, and data sets.