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MUST WE HAVE FORMAL INSTRUCTION IN THE USE OF CHEMICAL LITERATURE NATHAN VAN PATTEN1 Stanford University, Stanford, California
THE earliest American publication relating to chemical inspired several friends, fellow members o f this Association, literature, as far as I have been able to determine, is the with the 'Ourage to address delivered by Dr. H. Carrington Bolton before In accordance witn proposal made Bolton, the American for the Advancement of the Chemical Section of the A.A.A.S., at a meeting held Science a t Montreal, August 23, 1882. This was on August 25th, appointed a "Committee on Indexing separately printed in the same year at Salem, MassChemical Literature." This committee consisted of achusetts. It is now quite rare. H. C. Bolton, Chairman, Ira R e m ~ n F. , W. Clarke, Dr. Bolton began his address with the following R. Leeds, and A. A. Jnlien, remarks: I t is interesting to note that Dr. Bolton's first conThe recognition by the Association of the equal rights of chemi- tribution, previously referred to, was an "Index to the cal science and theelevation of the late "Permanent Subsection" to ~ i t of ~uranium," ~ ~ published t ~ in~ the~ ~~~~l~ the dignity of s. "Section of Chemistry," now assembled for the the New Lyceum Of 7' &st time, mark an important epoch in the annals of our organieation. Permit me to offer eongrstulstions on our promo- February, 1870. tion and to express my high appreciation of the honor of preSixty-seven years after the American Association for siding over your deliberations. the Advancement of Science established a Section of H~ then reviewed "chemical writings as sources of Chemistry, the American Chemical Society has estabinformation and as portions of the world,s literary lished a Division of Chemical Literature. I t is an productions." In conclusion Dr. Bolton remarked honor, equal to that expressed by Dr. Bolton, to be invited to contribute a paper to the first meeting of the t,hat: new division. The modern period of chemical literature is characterized by ~h~ problems which confronted chemists in the use two opposing forces, a tendency to dispersal and an effort to colOf their literature in 1882, complex as thdy were, have lect the widely scattered publications. 'rhe of learned societies especially in Europe, each of which supports become much more complex in 1949. its own organ, and the increasing number of nations interested ~b~ extentto which the chemical literature has inin scientific pursuits, in each of which arises an independent periodical, tend to the wide, wide dispersal of memoirs, essays and creased during the last forty years is immediately apparent when we look a t the single volume of Chemical notices. On the other hand, industrious editors laboriously collect Abstracts which covers the literature of 1906 and the and set in order these scattered observations, constructing VOlnmeSwhich cover the literature of 1948. compact, massive handhooks, and many volumed oyelopedias. . . . Chemists in 1882 were intent upon the recognition of The amount of time and labor required to search for a given their science as an entity. During the last three decpoint throughout the maze of modern chemical journals, transactions, treatises and handbooks, is well appreciated by myaudi- ades, this entity has become blurred. The developence; the superb dictionaries and annuals referred to accomplish ment of the physical and biological aspects of chemistry much in cataloguing, condensing, and systematizing the infinity has greatly expanded the scope of the literature of observations: nevertheless, all working chemists feel the need of special indexes, simply arranged, as complete as possible which chemists are concerned. Under the leadership of their professional organizaand acoessihle t o everyone. Sharing in this feeling, I have contrihuted my mite t o the literature of chemical indexes and have tions, chemists both in the United States and abroad ' Professor of Bibliography, Stanford University, and Lecturer have been more alert with regard to the importance n Medical Bibliography, schoolof Medicine, university of c d i - of their literature than other professional groups and iornia. have been provided with a much more elaborate biblio-
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graphical apparatus. Experience demonstrates, however, that the possession of an extensive literature and an elaborate bibliographicalapparatus isnot enough. There is an imperative necessity that all chemists should be given an opportunity to receive systematic instruction in the use of the chemical literature. Such instruction should be given as early in an individual's academic career as possible. Some command of the subject should be acquired before the individual is engaged in graduate work, research, or the practice of a chemical specialty. If this is accepted as a desirable step, consideration must be given to the pedagogical problems involved. Some efforts have been made along this line notably a t the University of Illinois and a t Stanford University where I have offered a course, Chemistry 180--Chemical Literature and Libraries, since 1929. This course consists of thirty lectures and carries three units of credit. It is not a required course. The two most important of the initial problems to be met in providing systematic instruction in the use of chemical literature are: (1) When should such instruction be given? (2) Who should give this instruction? It is obvious that a complete treatment of the subject, involving as it does, a considerable knowledge of chemistry cannot be given to undergraduates who are taking their first courses in chemistry although it is equally obvious that instruction in the elementary aspects should be made available to these beginners. I believe that a course of ten lectures carrying one unit of credit or such a course without credit but upon which attendance was required should be offered to undergraduates to parallel their introduction to the science. This course should include a thorough explanation o$ the principles involved in the classification of books in a library, the use of the library catalogue, and the use of general reference books including dictionaries, encyclopedias, indexes, etc. It cannot be assumed that all students possess this knowledge. This should be followed by discussion and demonstration of the use of such basic sources of chemical information as Chemical Abstracts, British Chemical Abstracts, chemical dictionaries, handbooks, and encyclopedias, tables of constants, etc. Students should also be introduced to the principal chemical journals in which original papers are published. The journals to be discussed might be limited to those in the English language. When the student begins the study of organic chemistry a more comprehensive course in advanced chemical literature should be made available. This course should consist of not less than thirty lectures in which detailed explanation would be given of the nature and use of all sources of chemical information including journals, monographs, handbooks, reports, theses, government documents, and the patent literature. This treatment of the subject should be extended to include the literature of related sciences-biology, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and physics.
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The student should be given comprehensive instruction in the preparation of bibliographies, dbstracts, reports, and translations. This instruction should be accompanied by practice work along these lines. It is very important to stress in this oonnection that the value of chemical information is in no way related to its source and that negative data are as important as positive data. By this I mean that the professional chemist cannot, because of the language difficulty, dismiss the literature in-Czech, Dutch, Greek, Roumanian, or Russian as unlikely to be useful to him nor come to the conclusion that everything of importance is to be found in the recent literature or in a particular library. He should acquire the negative knowledge of particular sources of information so that he will not waste his time seeking information in Chemical Abstracts which is to be found in Biological Abstracts nor expect to h d entries covering articles published in the journal literature entered to any considerable extent in library catalogues. The complexity of the bibliographical apparatus in the field of chemistry has reached the point where it is necessary to devote a single lecture to the discussion of one reference book alone, i.e., Beilstein's "Handbuch der organische Chemie." This, by the way, seems to be the only work concerning which a separate literature exists intended to elucidate its purposes and use. The advanced course, referred to above, would of course also meet the needs of graduate students and staff members who had not had an opportunity to receive systematic instruction in the use of the literature. I t is true that chemical bibliography and chemical history like the bibliography and history of the other sciences have been largely the concern of amateurs. During the sixty-seven years which have elapsed since Dr. Bolton made an effort in this direction, most of the work relating to chemical bibliography has been done by chemists who were not trained in bibliographical methods or by bibliographers who were untrained in chemistry. A similar situation exists with regard to the history of chemistry where the work has been carried on either by chemists unfamiliar with the canons of historical research or by historians equally unfamiliar with the science of chemistry. These observations have an equal validity when applied to medical bibliography and medical history and the bibliography and history of other sciences. Having failed to develop any considerable number of chemical bibliographers, instruction in the use of the chemical literature must necessarily begin with an inadequate personnel. This does not to the slightest degree imply that the beginning should not be made. The same situation existed when chemistry first became a part of college and university curricula. I recall a conversation with an elderly professor of theology who told me that when chemistry was first taught as a separate subject a t the university with which he was connected he was assigned to teach it for no better reason than the fact that so few students enrolled for
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his regular courses in theology. This gentleman also remarked that the method of teaching which he used was limited to lectures based upon a textbook which he did not understand and demonstrations which consistently failed to turn out as the textbook stated they would. Instruction in chemistry, a t the beginning, was usually placed in the hands of men who were engaged in teaching philosophy or the so-called natural sciences. If the teaching personnel is to be drawn from the chemistry profession it is obvious that the individual chemists concerned are certain to be much better informed as to the literature of their own specialities, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, metallurgical chemistry, etc., than as to the literature of chemistry as a whole, and more or lessunacquainted with the complexities of library classification, cataloguing, and organization. If the library profession is expected to provide the personnel then we must note that very few individuals trained in chemistry have entered library work and that the American library schools provide no instruction or very little in the highly specialized subject of chemical literature and its use in research. This situation could rapidly change if chemical bibliography were recognized, as the organization of this Division of Chemical Literature seems to imply i t may be, as a definite chemical specialty and opportunities provided for specialists in this branch of chemistry to find suitable positions in educational institutions, libraries, and the chemical industries. The title of this paper implies that I will discuss certain alternatives to systematic instruction in the use of the chemical literature. I desire also to give some consideration to the functions of the chemical libraries, large and small, which form a part of the organization of chemical laboratories and the chemical industries. The alternatives which I have in mind do not preclude the extension of systematic instruction in colleges and univedities. On the contrary, if these alternatives are also to be adopted, the systematic instruction is absolutely necessary to make it possible to carry them out. The alternatives, too, require an adequately trained personnel and the requisite training must be provided by advanced courses in the use of chemical literature supplemented by courses in the history of chemistry, the methodology of research, and the literature of biology, engineering, mathematics, and physics iogether with a thorough training in the fundamentals of library science. A mastery of the principles governing hibliographical work upon a high level is of particular importance. One alternative is to make it a standard practice in chemical laboratories and in the chemical industries to free the staff entirely from any responsibility for the preparation of bibliographies, summarizing the state of the prior art, making abstracts or translations and keeping abreast of the current developments in particular areas of chemical research and industry. This
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work would then be done by professional chemical bibliographers. The analogy here is to the relationship which now exists in chemistry between the research chemist and specialists who assist him in the construction of his apparatus, in the preparation of photographic material, etc. The analogy is perhaps more apparent when we observe the extent to which research men in the field of medicine and practitioners of medicine depend upon the services of associated specialists. Very few medical men do their own laboratory work in bacteriology or pathology, make their own X-ray photographs, or prepare their own microscope slides. There is an economic aspect to this solution of the problems involved in an efficient utilization of the chemical literature. It is clearly much more expensive to have a highly trained chemist spend a hundred hours in preliminary work upon the literature before he begins work upon a research project than it is to have this work done by a much more competent professional chemical bibliographer. The waste inherent in taking the research man away from his work while he laboriously digs out a poor translation of some pertinent paper in a foreign language with which he has only a slight acquaintance is obvious. Similarly, why should the time of a research chemist be spent in keeping up with the relevant literature when abstracts and translations of the literature in which he is likely to he interested could he promptly placed on his desk by specialists employed for this specific purpose? I am, of course, aware that this is already the practice in a few large industrial laboratories and that a limited service along these lines is being rendered by special librarians with initiative and imagination. I also realize that this practice is not applicable to a staff consisting of a few chemists. A highly competent chemical bibliographer can hardly be expected to be employed to serve one or two research workers. The isolated chemist or the chemist who has only a few associates must continue to depend largely upon his own efforts or have access to a public or institutional library where competent professional bibliographicat service is available. This brings us to a brief consideration of the functions of the chemical library. In simplest terms the chemical library is intended to provide chemical data promptly to chemists, chemical engineers, and to others concerned with economic, legal, and industrial aspects of chemistry and chemical engineering. No time need be spent in a discussion of what books and journals should be found in a chemical library. Careful consideration must be given to the selection of material in a small library. A large library cannot have too many hooks and journals. No chemical library has everything which has been published relating t o chemistry in all of its ramifications. Reliable guidance in the selection of books and journals will be found in the various guides to the literature of chemistry, e. g , Crane and Patterson and Soule. The classification and cataloguing of the material in chemical libraries usually conforms to standard library practice.
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Considerable t i m e m o r e than is available to the writer of this paper--could be given to the discussion of desirable extensions of service in chemical libraries. I will touch upon only a few of these. Chemists and the staff of chemical libraries prepare each year thousands of bibliographies and translations. A very simple practice along the line of cooperation between chemists and between chemical libraries would result in a very considerable saving of time and money in this connection. When a bibliography is compiled or a translation made it would be invaluable if a carbon copy could be consistently forwarded promptly to some central agency for the use of all chemists. The existence of most of these bibliographies and translations remains unknown, although the National Research Council has published a list of chemical bibliographies existing in manuscript and available for use. This list, under the circumstances of its compilation, is necessarily incomplete and cannot be kept up to date. The central agency might be the Chemists Club Library, The National Research Council, the Union Catalog at the Library of Congress, or the editorial offices of Chemical Abstracts. The availability of such bibliographies and translations could be made known by including entries in Chemical Abstracts similar to the sample ones given below. A. For a manuscript bibliography: Isotopes Brown, Henry L. The use of isotopes in the practice of medicine. Manuscript bibliography covering the literature from 1940 through - 1948. 1,218 entries. Available through the Oberlin College Library. B. For a translation available when the abstract of the original is published in Chemical Abstracts: A note appended to the abstract: A translation into English is available through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Library. C. For a translation made after the abstract of the original has been published in Chemical Abstracts: Rocks. Analysis. Stolberg, Max. Anleitung zur Gesteinanalyse. (Cj. Chem. Abs., v. 42, p. 676, 1948.) Translation into English available through the University of California Library. The name of the central agency could be substituted for that of the library, laboratory, or individual having the bibliography or translation. This valuable addition to Chemical Abstracts could be made by inserting a carbon when the bibliography oftranslation was typed and mailing a copy to the
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central agency which could in turn provide Chemical Abstracts with the data required for inclusion in that publication. Many obscure chemical publications are acquired by chemical libraries. A more consistent effort should be made to see that a catalogue card covering all such acquisitions is sent to the Union Catalog a t the Library of Congress. There is otherwise little likelihood that these obscure chemical publications will be recorded in this central source of information which has proved so valuable to American scholars in many fidds. The maintenance of an adequate chemical lihrary is usually beyond the resources of any but the larger institutions and industries. Consideration should be given to the consolidation of the smaller libraries in a single large one in all areas where there is an extensive chemical industry. The annual expenditure of approximately $1,000 by each of three different corporations in one area might add 200 books and journals to each library. The annual expenditure of the same amount to increase the resources of a central library would add 600 books and journals. In the sams way the amount spent for salaries in three separate libraries would provide a larger staff and higher salaries in a central library. This plan has been tried in a few instances. There is the same reason for pooling library resources that exists for the pooling of patents. I t is impossible to prevent a competitor from gaining access to published literature. All that can be accomplished by the competitive spirit in this field is to make library service less adequate and more expensive for everyone. If we are not to provide formal instruction in the use of the chemical literature in our colleges and universities, if there is no inclination to recognize chemical bibliography as an important branch of chemistry nor to provide chemists with complete service in the preparation of abstracts, summaries, bibliographies, and translations, then only one possible alternative remains to be considered. The chemical literature is the largest body of scientific literature in existence. It has come into existence over several centuries and is widely scattered in books, journals, government documents, patents, and elsewhere. The total number of separate pieces of chemical literature is incalculable. If we consider each separately published book and pamphlet and each journal article as a unit a rough guess might be hazarded as to the total. My own guess is that the total would be not less than 1,500,000 units. The use of such a tremendous accumulation of literature is beyond the capacity of an individual who has not acquired a mastery through a long period of study and a still longer experience. The circumstances under which this vast accumulation of chemical data has come into existence have resulted in a situation which has little rhyme or reason. An important chemical truth may have been stated by a writer in Arabia centuries ago and never restated. A discovery, the significance of which has been overlooked, may have been recorded ~
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in a German journal in 1849. A valuable contribution to knowledge relating to a chemical subject may have been printed in an obscure journal in some other field in 1926. On the other hand the same chemical data may have been printed in 500 separate places. Much has been overlooked and much has been repeated over and over again. Dr. Bolton took a contemporary view in 1882 when he expressed the idea that the problem could be solved by the preparation of a series of indexes to the literature of particular subjects. Although the situation has changed greatly in the interim, his suggestion still has considerable validity. If we could have a Beilstein in every branch of chemistry and if bibliographies could be compiled and published relating to an almost infinite number of chemical subjects the use of the literature would become a simple matter, in most instances, requiring only the consultation of a single source of information and the checking of entries in Chemical Abstracts, British Chemical Abstracts, Chemische Centralblatt, and similar publications for supplementary material published after the master list. This seems to be a counsel of perfection. The compilation of bibliographies is extremely tedious and has no rewards other than the satisfaction one can take in the completion of a task. The publication of bibliographies has little attraction for commercial publishers and probably could not be supported by a single professional society. The work could not be done
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upon a haphazard basis. I t would require careful preliminary planning and should be international in character. A subsidy would have to be obtained from governments and for all practical purposes this mould mean that it would have to be supported by the United States government. The completion of such a project would take many years and its parts would be out of date almost as soon as they were issued. Only t h e larger libraries could afford to acquire such a work and i t would as a consequence be unavailable to many chemists. The only value that such a visionary concept couId possibly have would be as an argument in favor of the widespread introduction of systematic instrnction in the use of the chemical literature and the recognition of chemical bibliography as an important branch of chemistry. In conclusion I would like to express my own confidence that we will find a satisfactory solution of the problems involved in the steady increase in the size of the chemical literature and the resulting difficulties. encountered in making use of it. I would also like t m express my regret that few of us will be able to attend a meeting of the Division of Chemical Literature in 2016 and to note the progress which has been made in another period equal in length to the one which separates us from the appointment in 1882 of a Comrnittce on Indexing of Chemical Literature by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
