Journals Russian, list

The monthly Inhaltsverzeichnisse sowjetischer Fachliteratur is another example of East German abstracting services, appearing in several subject series since 1953 (Reihe III/B covers chemistry and biology). Each monthly issue abstracts totally, in German, well over 20 top Soviet chemical and biological journals (the list of these titles remains standard) published not more than 4 months before. Annual subject and author indexes to Inhaltsverzeichnisse are usually available within a year—which is sometimes earlier than the appearance of the subject indexes of the original Russian journals. 

Mendeleev s paper did not evoke much interest either when it was published two months later in the journal of the Chemical Society. However, matters were different when Mendeleev published another paper, The Natural System of the Elements, two years later. This paper, which contained a revised periodic table (Mendeleev now listed elements in vertical columns rather than horizontal rows), had a much greater response. Russian chemists read it with great interest, as did foreign chemists when the paper was translated into German the same year. 

Listings of titles are valuable, as far as they go, but they do not tell what is in the paper, beyond the implications carried by the titles. From the earliest days of organic chemistry, abstracts of papers have been widely available, often as sections of journals whose principal interests lay elsewhere.14 At the present time there are only two publications entirely devoted to abstracts covering the whole field of chemistry. One of these, Referativnyi Zhurnal, Khimiya, which began in 1953, is published in Russian and is chiefly of interest to Russian-... 

Partly from lack of space, we have restricted our general discussion of the use of the literature and information retrieval services. The comments of Bruce and the references he cites are valuable here. Also we have not given statistical analyses of published papers. The relative importance of literature on various elements is, however, apparent from our book lists and the appendix of review articles clearly silicon and boron compounds have been most thoroughly studied. We broadly endorse the comments of Bruce about the relative importance of various journals in organometallic chemistry—except to add that the organometallic chemistry of the Main Group elements has been particularly widely investigated in the USSR. Books and papers from Russian authors are therefore of considerable importance. 

One of the first activities of the Library Committee was the preparation of a list of current periodicals to be added to those already received by Crerar Library. The first list authorized by the CCLF Trustees included 120 titles and many have been added since that time, including some of the scientific Russian journals published in English translation. 

Russian language journals are careful in making references to works in the Latin alphabet. Authors names and titles of journals originally appearing in the Latin alphabet are reproduced as such. Formerly this practice was followed both in the teirt of the Russian article and in the list of references at the end of it. Lately, however, the Latin spelling in the text has been abandoned but in the list of references and bibliographies it is retained. 

However, even these subsidies and the income from bequests did not always cover the immediate needs of the society and members would need to take quick action to assist the society. For example, on 26th August 1898, at a dinner for chemists attending the tenth Congress of Russian Naturalists, in Kiev, the chemists discussed the financial difficulties of the RKhO. N. D. Zelinskii proposed taking up a collection for the society and 600 rubles were collected. S. N. Reformatskii sent a list of the donors to N. A. Menshutkin, the editor of the society s journal. ... 

An index to translations, mainly unpublished, made throughout the Commonwealth, arranged by authors and journal titles is held by Aslib in London. This is the British Commonwealth Index of Scientific Translations, which comprises all languages including Japanese as well as Russian and German. Translations listed in Technical Translations are included. This is the main British source for identifying and locating translations. 

Translations collected from Federal agencies and other sources such as the Special Libraries Association Translation Center are listed twice a month in Technical Translations which abstracts translations from books and journals from many sources and also covers translations in preparation. Each issue has its own index, and cumulative indexes are issued every six months. Sections of the Russian Referatimyi Zhurnal are also published in English by OTS. 

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