Chemical Information for Chemists

A Primer

Edited by Judith Currano, Dana Roth

Publication date:

31 January 2014

Length of book:

322 pages

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry

ISBN-13: 9781782620655

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.

Introduction to the chemical literature; Using the primary literature: A. Journals and impact; B. Patents; C. Conference papers, reports, and abstracts; Searching by text; Physical properties; Structure and substructure searching; Reaction searching; Basic Markush searching for patent information; Polymers and information retrieval; Commercial availability and safety and hazards information; Green chemistry information; Protein searching; Index

Three years ago and after 20+ years doing other forms of librarianship (mostly on the administrative side of things), I was assigned to be the subject liaison to not only Chemistry but all the sciences offered for study on our campus. (Yes, our library was experiencing some issues.) The faculty have been wonderfully supportive of me despite my subject ignorance and I am learning on the job but I still feel anxious in a lot of areas, especially in Chemistry and especially doing instruction in SciFinder. I ordered this book when I saw this thread come across the wire. It just arrived and I cracked it this weekend, coincidentally as I prepare for some instruction in, you guessed it, SciFinder! Wow. This book is definitely addressing gaps in my understanding of the tools and content that underpin finding information in chemistry. I highly recommend it. Thank you to all the contributors … this is a life-line for me!