In the Library of Congress subject headings that are commonly used in college and research libraries, the broad area of chemistry is broken down into sub-areas, which invert the names of the sub-disciplines:
Many library OPACs allow two methods of searching for a subject:
The latter approach utilizes a controlled vocabulary, the Library of Congress subject headings. Those may be searched in the IU Libraries OPAC, IUCAT. The broad LC subject headings can often be further defined by topic or format of the material being indexed, so one could search as subject words terms such as:
OR
chemistry analytic dictionaries
to find appropriate works.
There are some dictionaries that cover many areas of science, for example, the Academic Press Dictionary of Science. This is typical of such dictionaries, with most of the content devoted to definitions of words or concepts arranged in alphabetical order. The work also contains special sections for such information as:
Another example of a general science dictionary is the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. A recent edition of this dictionary included a diskette with a file that can be loaded into MicroSoft Word so that the spelling checker in Word recognizes correctly-spelled scientific terms instead of flagging them as misspellings.
Below are some specific printed dictionaries for chemistry.
A number of smaller dictionaries that cover all of chemistry have appeared over the years, among them:
These are sometimes repackaged versions of the larger science dictionaries that have appeared from a given publisher.
The recent third edition of the Concise Encyclopedia Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is another translation of a German work. Although there are no color plates, the work has lots of illustrations. The Comprehensive Dictionary of Physical Chemistry, which appeared in 1992, was the first of a planned seven volumes that would cover all of modern chemistry.
Unfortunately, there are not a lot of freely accessible dictionaries on the Internet. An exception is the BioTech Life Science Dictionary, which has more than 8300 terms that deal mostly with biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, cell biology and genetics. The BioTech work also has some terms relating to ecology, pharmacology, toxicology and medicine. Another dictionary-type work is the Chemical Acronyms Database, with over 12,000 terms. There are also specialized printed acronym works, such as Beddoes' The Polymer Lexicon, a list of over 5,000 acronyms and abbreviations used in the rubber and plastics industries, and GABCOM & GABMET, subtitled, acronyms of compounds and methods in chemistry and physics.
As a final example of a specialized dictionary, consider Callaham's Russian-English Dictionary of Science and Technology. A dictionary of this type is particularly useful when faced with the prospect of reading an article in a foreign language. Again, a library's OPAC may help find a suitable dictionary with a subject search such as:
There are many more dictionaries for chemistry than can be discussed here. To see more of them, perform a keyword search on the Chemical Reference Sources Database for: dictionar
Encyclopedias, like dictionaries, are tools designed to provide first and essential facts on a topic. However, the encyclopedia will make an effort to fit a topic into a general framework and to relate it to other concepts. Furthermore, an encyclopedia article will often provide a bibliography of key references on a topic so that further investigation in more depth is possible. General encyclopedias usually have a wealth of information on scientific topics, and we now see them becoming accessible on the Web. One such example is Britannica Online, the Web counterpart to the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Also found at the site is Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.)
An example of a search for information on mass spectrometry that was run on Britannica Online is below.
Remember that, as a secondary work, information in an encyclopedia is invariably dated, even in an encyclopedia that is on the web. Such tools are not meant to keep up with the latest advances in science that have appeared this week. That is the chore of the abstracting and indexing services.
There are specialized general science encyclopedias, just as there are specialized science dictionaries. One of the best is the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. A smaller, but very highly regarded encyclopedia is Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. Both of these are now available in CD-ROM editions.
Specialized encyclopedias also exist for more specific areas of science, such as the Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology. Although this work keeps the traditional alphabetical arrangement of an encyclopedia, it contains a detailed subject index and a relational index, as well as a glossary.
In the field of chemistry, the MOST IMPORTANT ENCYCLOPEDIA is the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. The massive set, which began to be published in its fourth edition in 1991, is now complete in 25 volumes. About one-half of the articles deal with chemical substances, and in those articles one can find a wealth of information on everything from physical properties to environmental concerns. But there are also many articles on such topics as industrial processes, uses made of chemical substances, pharmaceuticals, dyes, fibers, food, etc. Plainly stated, this is the single most important reference work for all areas of chemistry and all types of questions that you might encounter in your career. Note that this is not an encyclopedia that is updated all at once. As has been true of previous editions, the reader must be aware that the earlier volumes are more outdated than are those that have recently appeared. A good library will maintain all editions of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia because it is frequently cited in the literature. The article on "mass spectrometry" in the fourth edition covers 24 pages and includes 79 references in the bibliography. In 2001, a Web version, Kirk-Othmer Online, became available.
Examples of more specialized encyclopedias in chemistry are the Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry, with 260 main articles and over 860 short definitions, etc. in 8 volumes (also on CD-ROM), and the Encyclopedia of Analytical Science in 10 volumes. Following our example of "mass spectrometry" into this work, we find in the index volume six columns of entries. The main article on the topic covers nearly 250 pages of the work, divided into sections dealing with "Theory and Instrumentation," "Techniques," and "Applications." On the other hand, the 3-volume Encyclopedia of Spectroscopy and Spectrometry has only an 8-page article on the historical perspective of mass spectrometry, with an additional one-page article on applications of mass spectrometry to food science. Many other references to the topic are found scattered throughout the work if one consults the index. A new approach for this encyclopedia is that the purchaser of the set has the right to access it on the Web for a period of time, with an annual fee imposed after that. Another specialized encyclopedia is the Encyclopedia of Computational Chemistry in 5 volumes.
Thus, we see that, depending on the type of encyclopedia chosen, a great deal of information about a topic can be found very quickly.
No such problems of definition exist for a TREATISE,. A treatise is always a multi-volume set of books that is intended to be an authoritative exposition of a topic. The treatise is designed to be used by experts in a field, and the authors presume a fair amount of knowledge of the discipline on the part of the readers. This is evident in the way treatises have the material arranged. Invariably, it is arranged according to the authors' or editors' conceptions of how the material should be most logically presented for the benefit of a reader who understands the discipline. Thus, we never find a treatise arranged in alphabetical order of the topics covered. In addition to the arrangement, a clue that a work is a treatise is often found in the title, which may have the word "comprehensive" as part of the main title.
Examples are:
A treatise usually appears over a number of years, and unfortunately for the novice, it is unlikely that an index covering the entire set will be published until the set is complete.
Link to Internet resources on this topic
Copyright 1998
Gary Wiggins