Historical Chemical Literature – Pathfinder

Searching the Chemical Literature before Chemical Abstracts
By David Flaxbart

Etwas Historisches verbunden mit Informationskompetenz! Für mich eine Traumkombination!

Siehe auch den Aufsatz „The World before 1907“ von Flaxbart im SLA Chemistry Division E-Newsletter vom January-March 2006 (Volume 20, Issue 3)

Modern chemical science had its origins in the 18th Century Enlightenment, and so did its literature. Papers on chemical topics were published in many scholarly journals, often those of various academies and philosophical societies throughout Europe and America. Journals dedicated to chemistry, such as Crell’s Chemisches Journal (1778) and Lavoisier’s Annales de Chimie (1789), began to appear in the late 18th century. Abstracts of literature appeared almost simultaneously in various publications, including Crell’s. Yet for most English-speakers, 1907 — the year Chemical Abstracts began indexing the world’s chemical literature — is the watershed date that now serves as a somewhat arbitrary demarcation between „modern“ and „historical“ chemistry. Finding the earlier chemical literature can be a real challenge. Here are some resources that can be helpful in identifying pre-1907 materials, listed in rough order of usefulness and accessibility. Remember that your best resource in this area is your librarian.