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 intellectual property and ethics. The second section consists
Judith N. Currano and Dana L. Roth. RSC Publishing: of two chapters dealing with the primary literature. The third
Cambridge, UK, 2014. 306 pp. ISBN: 978-1849735513 section comprises the bulk of the book, with seven chapters
(cloth). $40.00. considering the secondary literature and specialized search
techniques.

T he chemical literature has evolved in the digital age, and One of the challenges the authors of these chapters face is
See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.

keeping up with the latest technologies and techniques for that many of the resources are subscription-based, while others
navigating and obtaining chemical information is an ongoing are freely available. The authors effectively address two different
challenge for both scientists and students. In Chemical audiences, those who have access to all the resources, and those
Information for Chemists: A Primer, the editors Judith Currano who have access to a fraction of the resources. There is an
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and Dana Roth have brought together a collection of chapters obvious effort to maintain a balance between coverage of the
authored by field experts that cumulatively expose the reader to resources (in both digital and traditional forms), and the
the latest chemical information technologies, and help develop development of general best practices associated with those, or
an understanding of the nature of chemical information. Similar related resources. Throughout the book, the authors make it
to an ACS Symposium Series, each chapter is written by a clear that their chapters are not comprehensive treatises and
unique author independent of the other chapters. However, the direct readers to further resources, although the coverage is
range of topics roughly follows the syllabus of a graduate course fairly comprehensive.
in chemical information offered at the University of In “The Non-Patent Primary Literature: Journals, Confer-
Pennsylvania, and the book could be used in university classes ences Papers, Reports, Abstracts and Preprints”, Dana Roth
at both the graduate and undergraduate level. The detailed (California Institute of Technology) goes over indexing and
table of contents is indexed in a manner that allows direct abstracting services, impact factors, notification systems, and
navigation to a section of interest, and although I found the access models and issues. In “Chemical Patents”, Michael White
book easy to read, the greatest use will probably be that of a (Queen’s University) goes over patents in general, a topic that I
reference book and guide to chemical information. The book believe needs better coverage in the undergraduate curriculum.
contains 308 pages, 10 chapters with 398 citations (although He does a great job of explaining patents, relating them to other
some are redundant as each chapter was written independently) forms of intellectual property and discussing chemistry-specific
and a subject index. A feature that would have been of great issues such as Markush structures. In “Searching Using Text:
value is a list of acronyms used across the chapters. Beyond Web Search Engines”, Andrea Twiss-Brooks (Uni-
versity of Chicago) introduces a variety of chemical search
options and techniques predominantly involving subscription-
based 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
Cover image (http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/9781782620655) provided by The Royal Society of Chemistry
Publishing and reproduced with permission. resources to the wet laboratory. It includes resources and
techniques to aid chemists in finding chemicals that fit their
The book is divided into three sections. In the first section, needs, also recognizing the importance of providing resources
Leah McEwen (Cornell University) provides the setting for the supporting safe handling of chemicals and recognition of the
book, reviewing the structure of the literature and the role of hazards associated with them.
chemical information in the practice of chemistry. This chapter
is a must for students, covering such critical issues as Published: August 11, 2014
© 2014 American Chemical Society and
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. 1515 dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed500529k | J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91, 1515−1516
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.

■ AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail: rebelford@ualr.edu.
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.

1516 dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed500529k | J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91, 1515−1516