CHEM 370, Chemical Literature

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CHEM 370, Chemical Literature

• Spring 2004
• Introduction

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Instructor

• Dr. Kyle W. Felling
• C308, 394-2491
• Kyle.Felling_at_sdsmt.edu
• Office Hours
• M 10-11, T 1-2, W 2-3, Th 3-4, and F 8-9

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Course Website

• http//www.hpcnet.org/sdsmt/directory/courses/2004
  sp/chem370M001

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I AM HERE Survey

• Go to http//www.sdsmt.edu/
• Click on and complete the I AM HERE survey by
  Friday, January 9th at 500 P.M.
• If not completed, you will be assumed not to be
  here and DROPPED from all your courses

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Evaluation

• Midterm Exam Term Project
• 100 pts 100 pts
• Homework Final Total
• 100 pts 100 pts 400 pts
• A 90-100
• B 80-89
• C 70-79
• D 60-69
• F lt60

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Term Project

• Select a topic in chemistry and research it using
  the resources discussed in class
• topics should be of interest or use to you
  whether it be with your current research or maybe
  concerned with your future career
• searches should not be trivial
• searches should not be for the synthesis of a
  single compound, although a class of compounds is
  suitable

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Term Project

• Due before February 26 is a written description
  of your proposed topic
• one to two paragraph description of what you want
  to research
• the proposals will be reviewed and returned as
  either acceptable, too narrow, too broad, or
  otherwise unacceptable
• unacceptable proposals need to be resubmitted by
  March 18

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Term Project

• Please contact the instructor if you need to
  change topics
• Use all of the print and online resources
  available to you
• A written report will be due by the final day of
  class, April 29

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Chemical Information Resources

• See the course website for useful print and
  online resources available for your use at
  SDSMT.
• http//www.hpcnet.org/sdsmt/directory/courses/2004
  sp/chem370M001

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Why a Course on Chemical Information?

• The subject is HUGE
• Chemical Abstracts
• Indexes journal titles, patents, conferences,
  reports, dissertations, preprints, etc
• Adds 700,000 citations and 1.3 million substance
  records per year
• Since 1907, 23 million abstracts of documents, 60
  million substances, and 7.3 million reactions
  have been indexed

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Why a Course on Chemical Information?

• The subject is HUGE
• Beilstein database
• 8 million organic compounds and 9 million
  reactions have been indexed
• Gmelin database
• 1.6 million inorganic compounds and 1.3 million
  reactions have been indexed

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Why a Course on Chemical Information?

• The subject is HUGE
• The older literature is as relevant, if not more
  so, than the newest literature
• The patent literature is as important as the more
  familiar journal literature

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Why a Course on Chemical Information?

• The subject is COMPLEX
• Chemists are interested in information which
  cannot be readily defined merely by keywords,
  such as numeric data, sets of similar structural
  features, or macromolecules
• The terminology of chemistry, especially
  nomenclature, is very complex
• The patent literature is often written in obscure
  terminology

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Why a Course on Chemical Information?

• The subject is RAPIDLY EVOLVING
• Just a few years ago, there was little
  information of interest on the internet. Now,
  traditional journals and databases have been made
  available on the internet
• Resources which have been available in electronic
  form for a long time are constantly being
  upgraded and made more sophisticated and
  user-friendly

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Why a Course on Chemical Information?

• Because the subject is huge, complex, and rapidly
  evolving, the chemical researcher can benefit
  from learning, in detail, both the HOW of
  searching chemical information and the WHY of the
  ways in which it is organized

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Information as a Physical Entity

• Information can be treated as a thermodynamic
  system, subject to entropy
• The organization of raw data turns it into
  information
• the better organized, the more value is added
• organization can be added at many levels

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Information as a Physical Entity

• End-user information processing puts information
  in its final form for use
• a stoichiometric use of time and skill
• Information professionals try to create
  organization in ways that can be used by many
  people
• a catalytic process

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Types of Scientific Literature

• PRIMARY
• the original publication of data
• journals
• patents
• technical reports
• conferences
• dissertations
• preprints
• some books

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Types of Scientific Literature

• SECONDARY
• Publications which provide access to the primary
  literature
• reviews
• indexes
• abstracts
• data collections
• most books

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Organizing the Scientific Literature

• Classification and Data Collection
• physically grouping related data by some common
  element
• Indexing
• creating pointers to the primary literature based
  on some piece of information in the original
• author names
• subject terms

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Classification and Data Collection

• Libraries use classification schemes to group
  related books together for browsing by subject
• the Library of Congress system designated QD
  for chemistry related materials
• Data collections bring information together from
  primary resources for easier location
• CRC Handbook of Chemistry
• Merck Index

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Indexing for Subject Access

• Some indexes use keywords from the original
  document others use standard subject
  vocabularies
• In U.S. libraries, terms are assigned from the
  Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
• MEDLINE uses the Medical Subject Headings (MESH)
• Chemical Abstracts uses its Index Guide, called
  the CA Lexicon

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Tradeoffs in Information Access

• Tradeoff between maximizing the retrieval of
  useful data vs. minimizing the retrieval of
  useless data
• also called specificity vs. collation or
  relevance vs. recall

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Specificity vs. Collation

• General headings bring like items together
• Specific headings avoid the irrelevant
• Searching narrowly avoids having to look at
  irrelevant items
• some relevant material may be missed
• Searching broadly helps insure nothing is missed
• will require screening to eliminate irrelevancies

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Information Users and Professionals The Quest for
Knowledge

• The information user brings a perceived need or
  needs
• The information professional can suggest how best
  to meet the needs through available technology
• Other information professionals develop the tools
  and technologies for searching

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Information Users and Professionals The Quest for
Knowledge

• The information user has to set priorities based
  on the ultimate objective and time available for
  searching
• Both the user and professional can evolve the
  needed strategy to extract needed information
  from the universe of scientific publication
• You will learn about specific tools and how to
  use them, also how to develop a strategy for
  finding scientific information