I’m used to being an oddball.  Well, perhaps I should rephrase that.  I’m accustomed to marching to a different drummer. I can actually hear the cosmic ratta-tat-tat snare drum beat over the cacophany of familiar voices in my head.  All of the history and justifications for this assertion will have to wait for another time.  Just assume for now that I am odd.

I love books and when an opportunity to write one came I took the bait.  A smooth editor plied her magic ways in recruiting me and I  agreed to consider the process.  Oh, this wasn’t to be some work of haute literature.  No, no, tsk. This was to be a chemistry book.  One of those “Advances in _____ Chemistry” type volumes.  It is with a respected publisher that the reader would recognize instantly.  I would serve as editor and write a few chapters.  My head was spinning with the thought of occupying library shelves along with the many familiar names of our science.  Heady thoughts. But to do this, I would need access to the literature.

So, at the recent ACS meeting in San Francisco, I happened by the CAS pavilion where I made an innocent query.  A question that would eventually bring down the whole house of cards.  You see, CAS- Chemicals Abstracts Service- is a type of business. They are in the business of abstracting every single chemically-related publication in the known universe.  Periodicals, patents, poster abstracts, toilet graffitti, symposium series, etc.  To do this requires an army of fastidious people with typing skills.  These people expect compensation commensurate with their skills, and so it costs real money to provide this service. 

So, the universe of customers for the services of CAS is broken into two domains- penurious Academia and fabulous Industry.  Academia, it turns out, pays approximately nothing. Industry pays through the nasal passages.  Now (camera zooms in on me) I’m standing there on the padded carpet in business casual attire with my badge screaming out my affiliation (INDUSTRY!!!).   A representative of CAS dutifully approaches me and politely asks “may I help you”?  By now I’m in full schmooze configuration and I explain my need to purchase SciFinder services for a book project. I explain that this project is my own and my employer has no obligation to fund it.

It was as though I had spoken in some archaic Portuguese dialect.  The CAS person listened to me respectfully and with patience. I can expect no more. I could tell that this story I put forth was considered unconventional or … odd.  But it was quickly determined that I was in the industrial bin and hitherto subjected to the full broadband blast of industrial charges.  I was DOA.

Point of clarification. If you have been on booth duty at a trade show, you know that the first thing you do with a contact is to qualify them.  If they have no potential for decent sales, you politely eject this spent round and load another cartridge.

The representative was done with me. In desparation, I pointed out the grim economics of writing a book.  I would make about $4500 over 5 years and the literature search could easily cost that much at industry prices.  But the door was shut. I was industrial and that was that (crickets in background).

So there I was. Standing there, rudder disabled by an errant torpedo.  Dreams slipping under the cold greasy waves of the north sea.  I needed the economics of academic SciFinder prices and it wasn’t to be.  Crap-a-matic.

The question I have is this.  How does a non-academic write a book summarizing the literature? I guess I have to forget SciFinder and camp out at the nearest unversity library. Interesting problem.