BY ITS MANY PUBLICATIONS,THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY HAS QUICKENED
THE FLOW OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO ALL THE WORLD hemistry i s a French science, founded by Lavoisier of deathless memory. Thus Adolphe Wurtz began his book, “Histoire des doctrines chimiques” (1869), by claiming for France a chemical pre-eminence which soon thereafter passed to Germany and later t o America. Some nations think it belonged elsewhere all the time, Nationalism can be perverted, but not killed. This brief history is nationalistic; it traces chemical literature in America as a factor in American chemical pre-eminence, but it recognizes the use of foreign tecihnical literature as part of the story. The literature has steadily contributed to American chemistry’s phenomenal growth in breadth of inquiry, depth of perception, and height of achievement. The AMERICANCHEXICAL SOCIETY, from its beginning in 1876, mas a leading influence. Like the Royal Society of London, chartered in 1662, the AMERICANCHEMICAL SOCIETYgrew out of less formally organized groups, notably the chemistry sections of the New York Academy of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chemistry and its literature had traveled far since 1662, Tvhen it was commonplace to conclude instructions for an experiment with the remark, “When you have finished this work, give God thanks and remember the poor” ( I ) . The new Society’s objectives included publication of research results. No grass grew on the path from resolve t o action. Charles F. Chandler of Columbia promptly opened his American Chemist to papers read a t meetings. I n 1876-1877, the papers appeared there and were reprinted in the Proceedings of the A.C.S., the first issue of which carried nine papers in 58 pages. The American Chemist bowed out in 1877; the Proceedings carried papers through 1878. The monthly Journal of the American Chemical Society was launched in 1879 with a triple issue (January-February-March) carrying eight papers, the proceedings of three meetings, a library accessions list, and an exchange list, all in 78 pages. The edtior was Hermann Endemann; he, v i t h Arno Behr and Gideon E . Moore, comprised the Publications Committee; these three and eight others constituted the staff of abstractors. From this modest start, the A.C.S. grew t o its present position of world leadership among chemical publishers. The Society, its divisions, and its local sections now publish or sponsor more chemical periodicals than were issued in all America in 1876. Today, many European periodicals eagerly seek papers by American authors, and foreign authors are delighted to have papers accepted by A.C.S. publications. I n 1876 the chemical journals in America could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The American Chemical Journal was as yet unknown, the American Laboratory and Journal of Applied Chemistry had just died, and Chandler’s American Chemist stood out like the lonesome pine. Druggists’ Circular and Chemical Gazette, perpetuating the British tradition of identifying chemists with pharmacy, lasted until 1882. American Gas Light Journal and Chemical Repertory actully had a broader scope than its title indicated. General science periodicals carried much of the chemical load-e.g., Silliman’s Journal of Science and the Journal of the Franklin Institute. There was much reliance on foreign literature. German immigrants supported (into the 1880’s) two American periodicals
8
&i%?h%
in German-ilmerikanzsche Bierbrauer and a German-language edition of American Agriculturzst. Textbooks of chemistry were fairly numerous, mainly a t the high school and college undergraduate level. The fashion then was t o go abroad (chiefly to Germany) for the doctorate. The Ivy League of graduate instruction might have included Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Pennsylvania. Johns Hopkins and Cornel1 were still too young t o attract many of America’s future chemists. Dissertations b y American students studying abroad outnumbered those of their stay-at-home brothers. American fondness for anything exotic doubtless added stimulus to the wanderlust, but foreign research (much of it in Germany) was the main attraction. Ambition t o follow in the footsteps of Germany’s most eminent scientists led many young American chemists overseas. Modern press agents would call it the “big name appeal,” but actually the underlying motive went deeper. Some doctoral dissertations of that era were:
C
Charles F. Chandler. Miscellaneous Chemical Researches. University of Gottingen, ’1856. J. B. Barringer, Investigations on Sorbic and Parasorbic Acids, University of Tubingen, 1871. Arnold Eiloart, On the Chlorine Compounds of Tolane, Johns Hopkins University, 1890. PATENTS
Under the present numbering system, dating from 1837, United States patents reached 182,000 in September 1876, passed the million mark in August 1911, and the 2,000,000 mark in May 1935. They are now well above 2,500,000. In 1876 only about one invention in twenty was chemical; now the ratio is nearer one in five. Chemical interests have broadened. For example, a coking oven would have been regarded as strictly a mechanical invention in 1876 even though it would one day have immense significance in the development of the coal tar chemical industry. Some obviously chemical inventions of 1876 were: U. S. Patent 178,447, June 6, Philipp Kramer, Waterproof Compounds for Leather U. S. Patent 182,647, September 26, Louis de Planque, Artificial Marble U. S. Patent 183,185, October 10, n7m. Maynard, Sulfurous Acid Gas Manufacture Universities, institutions, and manufacturers were not prolific chemical publishers in 1876. Ignoring the flamboyant literatur? of the patent medicine producers, we can still cite some chemical publications from nongovernment sources: Verplanck Colvin, Certain New Phenomena in Chemistry, Albany, 1872 Henry A. Mott, Chemist’s Manual, A Practical Treatise, New York City, 1877 James R. n’ichols, Chemistry of the Farm and the Sea, Boston, 1867 Ira Remsen, Principles of Theoretical Chemistry, Philadelphia, 1877 B y 1951 standards, all the Bmerican chemical literature extant in 1876 would not make a large collection even for a college professor’s home library. American chemists liked to read, but
J. F. Smith, Office of Naval Research, Washington, D. C. 1288
d
.
U
I
relied greatly on foreign literature. Their loyalty to the American Chemist did not make them less fond of its parent Chemical News or of the Journal of the Chemical Society, Annalen der Chemie, or Annales de Chimze. They even published some of their papers in foreign journals in order to reach a greater audience. Thus, the lines between American and foreign chemical literature were hazy in 1876. Some literature was published in German even in America; some was published abroad by American authors. Publication activity waxed strong in the warm glow of favor accorded it by the newly organized AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. Pure and applied science were then entering a period of growth in which cause and effect are hard to distinguish. T o say that the A.C.S. merely followed the trend toward chemical publication would falsely imply lack of leadership. To say that the A.C.S. created the trend would be a tall story. Hewing t o the straight line of facts, primary publication of American chemical findings increased more and more rapidly year by year in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Some milestones of progress were the American Chemical Journal (1879); Bulletins of the Division of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture (1883); Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (Proceedzngs)(1884); Journal of Analytical Chemistry (1887); and Journal of Physical Chemistry (1896). All this while, the Society’s Jouinal was growing in stature and in favor. Chemical books-from the ponderous alchemical tomes of the Middle Ages to the texts of a century or so ago-were largely media of primary publication (new work or speculative contemplation). B u t periodicals multiplied and, in turn, became the chief outlets for original work. More and more books acquired the characteristics of textbooks, manuals, compilations, and monographs containing little or no new knowledge. Scientific periodicals are now so burdened with papers for publication that investigators are becoming increasingly prone to release their research findings in books. A chapter contributed t o a composite book may reach thc public faster than a paper sent to a periodical. Many journals are patiently whittling away a t huge backlogs, whereas book publishers can sometimes set and meet a deadline of three or four months from accepted manuscript to bookstore shelf. A few American chemical periodicals have worked back to within sight of the shortest possible time lag. Chemical books have not actually cycled back from secondary to primary publication, but any worsening of the periodical situation will undoubtedly promote such a tendency. Among inventors, one good idea often sired two or three more ideas. Hence, patent grants increased. Agricultural and engineering experimental stations were established in one state after another; university graduate schools attracted more and more students; the industrial giant slowly awoke to the profit possibilities in research. The result was more publications. Report files and libraries bulged; people were needed t o keep them serviceable. The growth rate became so rapid t h a t guides to the literature were needed lest control be lost entirely. The A.C.S. gave a powerful impetus to secondary publication by taking responsibility for the Review of American Chemical Research in 1897 and by broadening it t o world-wide coverage as Chemical Abstracts in 1907. The Monographs, which combine primary and secondary publication, and Chemical Reviews (1924) are other potent searching aids provided under A.C.S. sponsorship. The history of Chemical Abstracts under its four editors (W. A. Noyes, 1907-1909; Austin M. Patterson, 1909-1913; J. J. Miller, 1914-1915; E. J. Crane, 1915-) has been recorded elsewhere (3) and was brought up to date at a Symposium on the History of Chemical Literature at the 118th meeting of the A.C.S. at Chicago in September 1950. I t s present state has been described by Crane (2); its position of world leadership is acknowledged both at home and abroad.
Columbia University housed the editorial ofices of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry in 1916
Ohio Xtate University i s the site of the present-day headquarters of Chemical Abstracts
Chemical Abstracts sta$ members use magnetic wire recorders in preparing decennial index
1289
Experienced librarian knows scientific journals from A to 2-from Abhandlnngen fo Zeitschrift,
Chemical library at the Arc0 Co. i s available ./“or use by all members of research stag
l’lw preparation of handbooks a i d tables of data ie a tedious, dreary job for the compilers, but they are blessings to the investigator who finds an answer in minutes instead of grubbing for it, all day in the library or all week in the laboratory. Francis 13. Storer, a pioneer compiler, turned out a modest product (7) but pointed the way toward Inkrnat,ional Critical Tables and other modcrn rompilations. By backing Chmical Abstracts and Cheirzicnl Ileuiarx :ind by participating in a variety of compilat’ion c n t w p r i w suc‘h as International Critical Tables, the A.C.8. hap denion t c d its appreciation of Hecondnry puhlication. Its Monogrttph,? offcr additional evidence of the Societ>y’sinterest and support. Bibliographies, another form of secondary publication, were sporadic effort’s in 1876, when n o field w&s hard to cover. AS bibliographic needs expanded, t,he art of searching also developed, but not apace. As searchers struggled to keep abreast of all branches of pure and applied chemistry, the demand for better searching aids became more insistent. Patent searching became an a r t in itself, having special requirements t h a t depended upon whether novelty, priority, validity, or infringement was the issue. Better subject indexes, especially of abstract journals, and better bibliographic practices evolved as the pressure increased. By 1926 bibliographies were so numerous that t,he National Research Council issued its “Bibliography of Bibliographies on Chemistry” for 1000-1924. This compilation has been partially moderniwd b u t compMion and publication of a new edition have been left to t.he future. Primary publication sufficed to keep chemists informed until itbout t,he end of the eightmnth cent.ury. Secondary publication, needed by chemists for searching the primary literatim, expanded slowly in the first half and much more rapidly in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the t m n t i c t h century, even the secondary literature hecanie so cumbersome that some relief was vital. Literature about clht:anical literature was slow to develop. A pioneer effort wau the syllabus (6) prepared by Marion E. 8pruks for her course in chemical I+rature (1914). I t ~m useful, but (*hemicai searchers needed more comprehensive guides to the literature. Thrct: of the best aids which finally emerged were those of Crane and Patterson (S), bfellon (4),and Soule (6). In a,ddition, the literature on the arts of indexing, classifying, coding, and fiearching has now become so voluininous t h a t it, ti turn, needs a bibliography of it,s own. As literature searching became more burdensome, libraries began t o expand and systematize their information services. A few individuals and firms went professional, notably H. W. Wilson Co. (1898) with i b Industrial Arts Index (1913), and D. D. Berolxheimer, the d e m of chemical bibliographers. The Engineering Index (1884), as reactivated by the Enghrering Societies Library (1929), became an outstanding current information service. “RPference Service” (1928-1930) offered a similar current scrvicc in chemical technology. Iridnstrial research laboratories, like Omar Khayyam, “bvhen voung did eagerly frequent doctor and saint, and heard great argument.’’ Staff discussions of current literature kept research men alert and alerted, until they were compelled by three fartors to systematize the a.lerting:
The research sta,fi outgww- ihe round tahle. Subject interests broa.dened, sometimes mushroomed. Tho 1itertit.ure crop grtw fast>erthan group receptivity. Internal routing systems helped, but not enough. Information bulletins followed, st,art,ingwith quickie productions which semi crude now but myere sufficient then. Some of the academic and institutional technical libraries which contributed t o better utilination of chemical literature are : Chemists’ Club Library University of Illinois Chenlical Library Purdue University Chemical Library
Research laboratory of Pennsylvania Salt Manzifacturing c‘o. contains well-stocked technical library 1290
June 1951
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
University of Michigan Chemical Library Ohio State University Chemical Library Carnegie Institute of Technology Library Institute of Paper Chemistry Library Kresge-Hooker Scientific Library Engineering Societies Library Research libraries of Du Pont, Hercules, Monsanto, DOW,and other chemical companies, and of several large laboratories in petroleum, rubber, and other industries are also contributing their share. Out of these efforts “documentation” slowly emerged as an art with many devotees. The term has been appropriated by producers of “documentary” films, but otherwise has not yet passed into the language to encounter such abuse and distortion as are suffered by “science” and “research.” Its chemist practitioners, who during World War I1 increased faster in work load than in numbers, felt the need for an organization more chemical in its interests and approach than the Special Libraries Association, in which many of them are members.
1291
PROSPECTS FOR FAST SEARCHING I N A M E C H A N I Z E D A G E
Defining documentation simply as the a r t of making literature searchable, we can define searching as the art of utilizingdocumentation. Like other definitions in reverse pairs, this is more rcsounding than enlightening. It is used here to illustrat,e the lack of any generally accepted definition among producers, processors, and users of .technical information. Machines are needed for searching great stockpiles of recorded information. Machine enthusiasts have rosy visions of pushbutton searching, while enjoying perfect immunity froni the drudgery of reducing the world’s literature t o a searchable state. To retrieve an item from the mass of known facts, the ret,rieving mind, hand, or machine must enter some point in the cycle: Mind
t
Document
-
+--
‘7”
Experiment
I)ocumentalists, discoursing glibly about. primary, secondary, and tertiary publications, often forget t h a t no publication can be DlVlSlOPI OF C H E M I C A L LITERATURE a primary source of information. Minds and their ideas are the wellsprings of information ; publications are necessarily never -4 symposium on chemical libraries and their problems was prehigher t,han secondary mediums in the flow. Research men do sented at the A.C.S. meeting in Buffalo in April 1919, when the not forget, t,his; they are forever swapping facts and fancies. stimulus of World War I was still active. During the next two Their tendency to seek first sources first has a,n enormous indev:ides, there were papers, dissertations, and books (3-6) a t fluence on the history of Chemical literature. Savants, meeting intervals, but no organization within the A.C.S. to pick each other’s minds, Early in World War 11, formed the Royal Society a number of chemists who Officers of the Division of Chemical Literature, “ere concerned with effiof London in 1662. I t s Proceediikgs, the first enduring cient utilization of the liter1948-1 951 scientific journal, started in ature felt the lack of orYour Chairman Secretary 1665. ganized effort within the Other savants, also meetr AMERICAN CHEMICALSOCI1948 Norman C. Hill Robert S. Casey ing to pick each other’s ETY. Their flicker of in1949 Norman C. Hill Robert S. Casey minds, formed the AMERIterest was fanned into a 1950 E. J. Crane Robert S. Casey CAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY in steady flame by the hearten1951 Robert S. Casey J . W. Perry 1876 and lost no time starting response accorded to ing a publication program. “Problems of the Scientific From that, small start, the Society has become one of the most, Literature Survey,” a paper by Gustav Egloff, Mary Alexander, potent forces in the world for publishing (facilitating the trek and Prudence Van Arsdell(lO5th meeting, A.C.S., April 1943). from mind to document) and abstracting (faclitiating the trek Recognizing the opportunity, Norman C. Hill (University of froni document t’o mind). Akron) discussed with Egloff the possibility of group effort. It The trek from mind t o docunient was first mechanized by was necessary to have a division sponsor the group. Paul H. Gutenherg half a millennium ago. Mechanizers of the trek b ~ c k Fall and Norria Rakestraw, of the Division of Chemical Educacan sa>-that the goal is in sight, but) not>that they have reached it. tion and its Journal of Cheinical Education, had receptive minds There are difficulties, the most formidable of which involves the and hospitable hearts. tracing of a boundary between routine (t’ruly mechanizable) The first result discernible t o A.C.S. members was a Symposium searching operations and those operations in which thought and on Technical Library Techniques, organized by Norman C. Hill imagination are needed. (106th Meeting, A.C.S., Pittsburgh, September 1943). Later Actually, the machines are a t present ahead of the minds. We the Division of Chemical Education officially took the literature have machines offering great utility t o searchers but, demanding a practitioners under its wing as the Chemical Literature Group. sttLte of Merature organizat,ion not even remotely approached at From May 1943 to date, there has been only one A.C.S. meeting present. The main problem of mechanized searching now is not (108th, New York, September 1944) without a program by the machine design, but a dingy, grubhy job of hard work. Sornegroup or its successor, the Division of Chemical Literature. body must, organize tens of million? of observations so that, the Guided by Norman C. Hill and a few of the faithful, the machines can handle t,heni. Chemical Literature Group sought and obtained divisional status.
Its petition was granted by the A.C.S. Council a t the St. Louis meeting in September 1948. In its first independent election (by mail ballot) the division elected officers for 1950: E. J. Crane, chairman; J. W. Perry, chairman elect. ResponFe t’o membership invitations exceeded expectations; more than 700 members had enrolled by the time of the spring meeting in 1950. The first issue of the division’s publication, Chemical Literature, appeared in November 1949. Substantial aid was given to its editor, Ben H. Weil, by the Georgia Institute of Technology. Beginning as a four-page leaflet, Chemical Literature is expanding a t a modest rate as warranted by the demand from members.
LITERATURE CITED
Bolton, H. C., “Chemical Literature,” Am. hssoc. for Advancement of Science. Montreal, Aug. 23. 1882. Quoted as reference 22. Crane, E. J., Chem. Eng. AVews,26, 2190-2 (1948). Crane, E. J., and Patterson, A. M., “Guide to the Literature of Chemistry,” pp. 86-9, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1927. Mellon, M. G., “Chemical Publications,” 1928; 2nd ed., New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1940. (5) Soule, B. A,, “Library Guide for the Chemist,” New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1938. (6) Sparks, M . E., “Chemical Literature and Its Use,” Ed. 2, Univ. of Illinois, 1921. (7) Storer, F. H., Filst Outlines of a Dictionary of Solubilities of Cheniical Substances,” Sever&Francis,Cambridge, Mars.,1864,
