Teaching Chemical Information:
Tips and Techniques

— August 1998 —

What to Teach: The Ideal Undergraduate Chemical Information Curriculum

Developed by Carol Carr and Arleen Somerville

Every undergraduate chemistry major should know that an extensive chemical literature exists, e.g. that there are scientific and chemical dictionaries, encyclopedias, indexes, and data compilations.

Students should learn:

• The structure of chemical information
• Electronic search skills
• Basic chemical search skills

The Structure of Chemical Information

• The primary mode of published information transfer in chemistry is the journal article or patent. Chemical Abstracts statistics show that over 80% of the chemical information they include comes from these two types of sources.
• Various types of information sources exist.
  Students should know when and how to use each type:
  1. journal articles
     • types of articles – “letters,” full article, review
     • sections of a typical full article.
  2. patents
  3. books (whole books exist on topics simply mentioned in their texts)
  4. handbooks (e.g. CRC , Merck Index, Dictionary of Organic Compounds)
  5. abstracts/indexes
     • bibliographic (e.g. Chemical Abstracts, related tools such as Physics Abstracts, Current Contents)
     • chemical indexes, (e.g. properties, reaction, structure, sequences).
  6. citation indexes
  7. review publications (journals, book series)

For the most important sources, students should learn:

• subject coverage
• indexing policies
• sources and time period covered
• style policies (abbreviations, etc.)

as well as questions that can and cannot be answered by a specific source.

Electronic search skills

• Boolean search logic (AND, OR, NOT)
• Truncation
• Choosing relevant search terms (including synonyms, abbreviations, codes).
• Special techniques for retrieving chemical information, e.g. name segments, molecular formula, structure and reaction queries.

Basic Chemical Search Skills

• Locate background material: review articles/encyclopedia articles
• Locate patents and journals (in a library, online)
• Compile a list of publications by an author
• Know the value of and can use a citation index
• Locate information on:
  1. Subjects (in Chemical Abstracts and other indexes, e.g. General Science Index, Physical Abstracts, Medline)
  2. Properties (spectra, chemical, physical, and toxicological/safety, etc.)
  3. Compound preparation

Grace Baysinger, Head Librarian and Bibliographer
Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library, Stanford University Libraries
graceb@stanford.edu