Book and Media Review pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Review of Chemical Information for Chemists: A Primer Robert E. Belford* Department of Chemistry, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204, United States Chemical Information for Chemists: A Primer, edited by Judith N. Currano and Dana L. Roth. RSC Publishing: Cambridge, UK, 2014. 306 pp. ISBN: 978-1849735513 (cloth). $40.00.
intellectual property and ethics. The second section consists of two chapters dealing with the primary literature. The third section comprises the bulk of the book, with seven chapters considering the secondary literature and specialized search techniques. One of the challenges the authors of these chapters face is that many of the resources are subscription-based, while others are freely available. The authors effectively address two different audiences, those who have access to all the resources, and those who have access to a fraction of the resources. There is an obvious effort to maintain a balance between coverage of the resources (in both digital and traditional forms), and the development of general best practices associated with those, or related resources. Throughout the book, the authors make it clear that their chapters are not comprehensive treatises and direct readers to further resources, although the coverage is fairly comprehensive. In “The Non-Patent Primary Literature: Journals, Conferences Papers, Reports, Abstracts and Preprints”, Dana Roth (California Institute of Technology) goes over indexing and abstracting services, impact factors, notification systems, and access models and issues. In “Chemical Patents”, Michael White (Queen’s University) goes over patents in general, a topic that I believe needs better coverage in the undergraduate curriculum. He does a great job of explaining patents, relating them to other forms of intellectual property and discussing chemistry-specific issues such as Markush structures. In “Searching Using Text: Beyond Web Search Engines”, Andrea Twiss-Brooks (University of Chicago) introduces a variety of chemical search options and techniques predominantly involving subscriptionbased services that index journal literature. In Chapter 5, “Searching by Structure and Substructure”, Judith Currano (University of Pennsylvania) focuses on Elsevier’s Reaxys and CAS’s SciFinder and STN (Scientific and Technical Information Network) to demonstrate best practices for structure and substructure searching of a variety of compounds, including organometallics. The next chapter, “Physical Properties and Spectra” by Ben Wagner (University at Buffalo), starts with the important aspect of evaluating resources and data provenance, and then provides a comprehensive review of both printed and online resources, distinguishing free database services from subscription-based ones. “Commercial Availability, Safety, and Hazards” by Dana Roth is an essential chapter that bridges chemical information resources to the wet laboratory. It includes resources and techniques to aid chemists in finding chemicals that fit their needs, also recognizing the importance of providing resources supporting safe handling of chemicals and recognition of the hazards associated with them.
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he chemical literature has evolved in the digital age, and keeping up with the latest technologies and techniques for navigating and obtaining chemical information is an ongoing challenge for both scientists and students. In Chemical Information for Chemists: A Primer, the editors Judith Currano and Dana Roth have brought together a collection of chapters authored by field experts that cumulatively expose the reader to the latest chemical information technologies, and help develop an understanding of the nature of chemical information. Similar to an ACS Symposium Series, each chapter is written by a unique author independent of the other chapters. However, the range of topics roughly follows the syllabus of a graduate course in chemical information offered at the University of Pennsylvania, and the book could be used in university classes at both the graduate and undergraduate level. The detailed table of contents is indexed in a manner that allows direct navigation to a section of interest, and although I found the book easy to read, the greatest use will probably be that of a reference book and guide to chemical information. The book contains 308 pages, 10 chapters with 398 citations (although some are redundant as each chapter was written independently) and a subject index. A feature that would have been of great value is a list of acronyms used across the chapters.
Cover image (http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/9781782620655) provided by The Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing and reproduced with permission.
The book is divided into three sections. In the first section, Leah McEwen (Cornell University) provides the setting for the book, reviewing the structure of the literature and the role of chemical information in the practice of chemistry. This chapter is a must for students, covering such critical issues as © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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Journal of Chemical Education
Book and Media Review
In “Searching for Polymers”, Donna Wrublewski (California Institute of Technology) not only provides guidance to polymer-related search services, but also summarizes many of the factors a researcher needs to consider that influence polymeric data. In “Reaction Searching”, Judith Currano starts with some step-by-step examples demonstrating various techniques for searching the literature for reactions through databases, and then goes over specific tools such as CASREACT, Reaxys, and SPRESI. This chapter ends with an overview of the review literature, much of which has not been digitized. In the final chapter of this book, “A Practical Primer to BLAST Sequence Similarity Searching”, Diane Rein (University at Buffalo) goes over protein sequence searching tools, with a focus on the use of the Basic Local Alignment Sequence Tool (BLAST) developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. In summary, I learned a lot in reviewing this book and found it easy to read, cover to cover. The editors managed to bring together experts whose individual chapters complement each other. The articles are written in a way to be of value to both the novice and the information professional, and I have already referred multiple students to it. The book is very affordable, and although I anticipate that the topic of this book, the chemical information landscape, will continue to evolve, I believe this book is written in a way so that it will remain relevant for years to come.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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