NON-CHEMICAL PUBLICATIONS IMPORTANT in CHEMISTRY M. G. MELLON Purdue Universify, Lafayette, Indiana
Water Works Association, MuniciNl Engineering, Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Electrical Engineering: Bulletin of the National Electric Light Association, Electrical Journal, Electrical Review, Electrical World, General Electric Rmiew, Journal of the American Institute of Electrim1 Engineers. Mechanical Engineering: Aerial Age, Bulletin of the Society of Industrial Engineering, Heating and Ventilating Magazine, Journal of the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers, Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Joumol of the American Society of Automotive Engineers, Mechanical Engineering, Metal Worker, National Eneineer, Railway. Aee, - Refri~eratwn. Mining Engineering: Engineering-Mining Journal, Mineral Industry, Transactions of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. Physics: Annales de Physique, Annalen der Physik, Journal de Physique, Physics, Physical Rmiew, Proceedings of the Physical Society, Physikalische Zedschrift, Zeitschrift f f r Physik. 2. Institutional Publications. Certain governmental bulletins cover technical research along scientific lines which are applicable to various fields of engineering. Valuable contributions come from the United States Bureaus of Mines and Standards and from various state engineering experiment stations. Lis? of such publications may be secured from the directors of these laboratories. 3. Patents. The general nature of the information to be found in patents is the same for the fields considered here as for chemistry and chemical technol~gy. There appears to be no place, such as Chemicat Abstracts, where it is gathered together for ready reference. The Oficial Gazette of the U. S. Patent Ofice, with its several indexes, is probably the best summarized source for domestic patents. Some periodicals carry notices or brief digests of some of the more significant patents. 4. Miscellaneous Publications. Manufacturer's techORIGINAL SOURCES nical bulletins, circulars, and pamphlets deal with prob1. Periodicals lems of the users of apparatus, describe new machinery Civil Engineering: C i d Engineering, Engineering, and appliances, and discuss the technical problems of Engineering News-Record, Journal of the AmeriGan the manufacture, testing, and application of equipment and related items. These are procurable from the MELLON,M . G., Chem. Met. Eng., 33.97 (1926). a M ~ ~ rM . .~ G., ~ , "Chemical publications," McGraw-Hill manufacturers. Few doctoral dissertations are encountered except in physics. Book Co.,Inc., New York City. 1928.
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MONG those engaged in the practice of chemistry and chemical technology there is rather general recognition of the value of the great fund of information contained in the chemical literature. Although the contributions to be found in chemical periodicals, institutional publications, patents, and treatises and other books are both fundamental and numerous, these sources are still not sufficient to meet all the technical needs of chemists and chemical engineers. For example, the graduate in chemistry may be confronted with a problem in applied physics (electricity or optics) or in chemical engineering, while the chemical engineer may well encounter problems requiring information in fields other than his own, even though he has not pursued one of the specialized curricula so popular at present. Such varied problems may require diverse kinds of knowledge. Some individuals in these situations may depend upon trained searchers in the larger industrial and technical libraries, or the consultant may well turn to a fellow consultant in another field. Many. do not find themselves so fortunately situated and so must rely more or less upon their own ingenuity to find what is needed. Communications with various individuals indicate these border-line problems frequently involve some division of physics or civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering. The purpose of the present paper, therefore, is to present a brief outline of certain sources in these fields. In most cases the separate publications included are the selections of individuals working in the respective fields. In general, sources in foreign languages were disregarded when suitable ones were available in English, as one in a more or less unfamiliar field may be expected to use first those in his own language. The nature of the subjects selected is such that they seem to fit satisfactorily into the classification used previously1, for the general field of chemical litvatwe. In accordance with this scheme there are indicated in the outline below what seem to be for the chemist some of the more important sources of information in physics and certain phases of engineering.
SECONDARYSOURCES
1 . Periodicals3 A. Abstracting Journals. The following sources are valuable: Science Abstracts. with one section devoted to physics and the other to electrical engineering; the Engineering Indez Sernice, consisting of references and brief annotations on 3 X 5 cards classified under more than 200 divisions of engineering and technology; and a number of specialized periodicals (original sources) containing sections devoted to abstracts. B. Index Serials. Many publications and their titles may be located by referring to one or more of the following compilations: a. "International Catalogue of Scientific Literature" (1800+). Sections are available on mechanics, mathematics, and physics (in addition to chemistry), with author and subject indexes. b. "Engineering Index and Industrial Management" (1890 +). References are. included of a technical, industrial, and commercial nature, including material dealing with costs, finance, and management of industrial concerns. c. "Industrial Arts Index" (1913 +). This is an index of technical articles. including new apparatus and machinery. d. "Repertorium der Tecbnischen Journalliteratur" (1823 '+). From the standpoint of time covered, this is an important foreign indexing serial. e. "Technical Supplement to the Daily Review of the Foreign Press." Notices are included for certain material appearing in foreign journals on civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering. 2. Bibliographies. Bibliographies in these fields are widely scattered, appearing most often in connection with some other publication. They do not differ in nature from those in chemistry. No general reference source for them is available. Darrow's "Classified List of Published Bibliographies in Physics," covering the years 191Cb22, is an example of a comprehensive effort in this direction. 3. General Works of Reference and ~extboroks A. Reference Works a. Tabular compilations. For the chemist this type of publication is probably as important as any mentioned in the present list. Some of those more or less commonly used are given below. Civil Engineering: Blanchard, "American Highway Engineers' Handbook"; Hool, "Concrete Engineers' Handbook" ; Hool and Johnson, "Handbook of Building
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EASON, Electrician. 82, 326 (1919).
Construction"; Ketchum, "Structural Engineers' Handbook" ; Kidder, "Architects' and Builders' Handbook"; Merriman, "American Civil Engineers' Handbook" ; Trautwine, "Civil Engineer's Pocketbook." Electrical Engineering: Croft, "American Handbook for Engineers and Electricians"; Cushing, "Standard Wiring" ; Fowle, "Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers"; Gillette and Dana, "Mechanical and Electrical Cost Data"; Pender, "Handbook for Electrical Engineers"; Sanderson, "Electric System Handbook" ; Wedmore and Onslow. "Electrical Engineers' Data Books." Mechanical Engineering: Colvin and Stanley, "American Machinists' Handbook"; Hoffman, "Handbook for Heating and Ventilating Engineers"; Kent, "Mechanical Engineers' Handbook" ; Marks, "Mechanical Engineer's Handbook"; "S.A.E. Handbook"; Siebel, "Compend of Mechanical Refrigeration"; Tulley, "Engineer's Handbook"; Walker and Crocker, "Machinery's Handbook" and "Piping Handbook"; Willard and Harding, "Heating and Ventilating" and "Power Plants and Refrigeration." Mining Engineering: Peele, "Mining Engineers' Handbook"; Taggart, "Handbook of Ore Dressing." General: Battle, "Industrial Oil Engineering"; Donald, "Handbook of Business Administration"; Gillette, "Handbook of Construction Cost" and "Handbook of Cost Data for Contractors and Engineers"; Hudson, "The Engineer's Manual"; O'Rourke, "General Engineering Handbook"; Washbun, et al., "International Critical Tables." b. Treatises Civil Engineering: "Cyclopedia of Civil En~ineerinc." (9 v.) ~, Electrical Engineering: "Cyclopedia of Applied Electricity." (8 v.) Mechanical Engineering: ' "Henley's Encyclopedia of Practical Engineering." (5 v.) Physics: Geiger and Scheel, "Handbuch der Physik" (24 v.); Glazebrook, "Dictionary of Applied Physics" (5 v.) ; WienHarms, "Handbud der Experimentalphysik" (25 v.). General: "Cyclopedia of Engineering" (7 v . ; Industrial Press, "Encyclopedia of Engineering" (1 v.); Lueger, "Lexikon der Gesamte Technik" (7 v.) ; Industrial Press, "Machinery's Encyclopedia" (7 v.). w
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B . Monographs. When competently written, monographs are likely to be the most reliable of the reference works whose data are affected by the time-lag so frequently encountered in the literature of a rapidly changing field.4 As far as the writer is aware, no general list of monographs is available for the fields considered here. C. Textbooks. Many textbooks are procurable covering various phases of engineering and physics. Much of the information contained therein is undoubtedly reliable for use by the - chemist. However, i t seems quite probable ' MELLON, J. CREM. EDUC., 10, 284 (1933).
that he should maintain toward them the same degree of skepticism that is necessary in using textbooks on chemistry.= For both textbooks and monographs in engigineering and physics suggestions may be obtained from the shelf lists of scientific and technical libraries and from the catalogs obtainable from the publishers2 of such books. In the engineering fields one should not forget the possibility of taking advantage of the excellent facilities of the Engineering Societies Library (29 W. 39th Street, New York City), either to use the library or to inquire about engineering publications.
