German chemical literature

The author was awarded the Prize for Chemical Literature for this book by die Verband der Chemischen Industrie (German Federation of Chemical Industries) in 1992... 

I1EII.STEIN, F. P. (1838-1906). A German chemist noted for his compilation Handbuch der Organischen Chemie, the first edition of which appeared in 1880. A multi volume compendium of the properties and reactions of organic compounds, it has been revised several times and remains a unique and fundamental contribution to chemical literature. 

Since the appearance of the Chemisches Journal in 1778, the German chemical literature has represented a sizable segment of the literature of chemistry as a whole. Chemisches Zentralblatt, the earliest of the abstract lournals, was widened in scope in 1949 to cover the chemical literature of the world. Aside from language difficulties, a search of German chemical literature involves no essential change in methods employed for search of any other area of chemical literature. 

German chemical literature entered the picture almost a century later. In 1778 appeared a new publication devoted solely to chemistry this was the Chemisches Journal which in 1784 changed its title to CrelVs Chemische Annalen, The nineteenth century saw the rise of the journals published by the chemical societies, with the trend from journals devoted to science in general to periodicals dealing with chemistry in general, then to publications covering specific branches of chemistry, and eventually to journals devoted to specific industries and their various aspects. 

A comprehensive survey and review of the German chemical literature cannot be given a balanced treatment within the frame of a single paper. Moreover, the descriptive aspects of German information sources in the field of chemistry have been well covered in a number of books and articles. Therefore in what follows the actual description of such sources is limited and their use in literature research is stressed. Thus, there is a shift of emphasis from What is German chemical literature to How may German chemical literature be employed and used to the best advantage of the research worker in the library or the laboratory ... 

In the field of German chemical literature a considerable number of authors and... 

In the German chemical literature, as elsewhere, the abstract journal and its indexes are, of course, the main source of information for the searcher. 

The wartime gap in the Gorman chemical literature has been taken up by the FIAT leview of German science (P), a comprehensive review of German fundamental research during 1939 to 1946. 

A discussion of the Field Information Agency, Technical (FIAT) Review of German Science is appropriately a part of a Symposium on Searching of Chemical Literature, for the reviews cover a period of years, 1939-46, during which the normal interchange of scientific information was seriously disrupted. In addition, it is only recently that practically the whole series of volumes has been completed in printed form and has become available to scientific libraries. 

Experience showed, however, that it was very difficult to invent new terms that would be universally accepted. The term glucide has been regularly used in all French-speaking countries, but it is rarely used in chemical literature in the Anglo-Saxon and German languages. But, subsequent to the indirect influence of the commission s decisions, the term carbohydrates has in practice become synonymous with glucides from the point of view of definition. 

The importance of abstracting Japanese scientific articles, otherwise wholly or partially inaccessible because of the linguistic barrier, was recognized early by the German Chemisches Zentralblatt, the American Chemical Abstracts the Journal of the Chemical Society London) (abstracts 1871-1925), and the British Chemical Abstracts. Since its first appearance in 1907, Chemical Abstracts has given increasing attention to Japanese chemical literature. This is described by the editor, E. J. Crane, in two articles 8, 9) from which the following statistics are taken. 

Abstracts of Japanese articles published in Chemical Abstracts were 0.3% of the total in 1909, and 9.1% in 1951 (first half of the year) however, the Japanese chemical literature was not covered completely before 1918. In comparison, American articles were 20.1% in 1909 and 36.6% in 1951 German articles made up a large part of the total in 1909 (45.0%), while they represent only 7.9% in 1951 9). 

Many foreign abbreviations are really a form of shorthand which frequently only the author can decipher. They are not necessarily coined on the basis of any uniform system, and that is where the main difficulty lies. This paper does not solve the difficulties encountered in connection with abbreviations used in the German, French, and Italian chemical literature, nor does it cover foreign abbreviations of journal citations or symbols. It is intended solely to afford an insight into whatever method there is in the madness, and to draw attention to some of the features to watch for as possible clues. Tables I and II list many of these abbreviations. 

FISCHBACH—TRANSLATING GERMAN, FRENCH, AND ITALIAN CHEMICAL LITERATURE... 

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