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CHOICE Review

Chemical information is a rapidly evolving area, reflected in this newest member of the chemical information family. Wiggins (Indiana University) has chosen to begin the meat of his book with a dive into chemical databases, most of which are online and interactive. His approach contrasts with those of earlier books on chemical "literature" such as M.G. Mellon, Chemical Publications, 5th ed., 1982 (compared here because of its exhaustive inclusiveness), because back a few years, online searching for undergraduates was not as feasible as it is now. He continues into citation searching, another very valuable way of looking at information, to subject searching, patent searching (becoming very important for undergraduates), and online information sources other than abstracting and indexing services, such as dictionaries and formula handbooks. He covers structure searching, made possible and easier by online techniques, and very welcome here, because earlier works (such as Mellon) did not cover these techniques, largely because they were not as accessible or as important to some searchers, especially undergraduates. Later chapters cover traditional chemical information sources (properties, processes, chemical reactions, word meanings and translations, etc.) as well as some new areas: toxicology, current awareness, and document delivery services. Wiggins ends with comments on the personal library of a scientist, science writing aids, trade literature, standards information, and chemical industry information. The last is always best, especially here: included with this book are two 3.5" floppy disks containing the Chemistry Reference Sources Database (CRSD), a computer-readable file of more than 2,150 records, which includes the complete reference collection of the Indiana University Chemistry Library, supplemented with items from the chemistry libraries at Purdue, University of Illinois, and University of Michigan. Complete bibliographic information about each work cited in the book is on these disks, together with much information not in the book. The database is searchable by subject and citation number (bracketed numbers in the text). Wiggins is to be commended for such a fine job. Recommended very highly for libraries serving chemistry students at all levels.-J. Douville, Choice