Over the past few months I have been trying to accumulate synthetic procedures for simple compounds of several elements. F-block elements whose chemistries are comparatively obscure at best. I have scoured the web with all sorts of search term combinations, looking for content that may be available. Except for links to major publishers wanting to sell me article downloads for $30 to $45 each, that faucet was dry.
SciFinder was surprisingly dry as well. Journal articles appeared touting some obscure p-chem work or Raman IR study. Interesting work to be sure, but the bibliographies were absent the key words I was looking for. Complicating matters, many of the early SciFinder listings were from Russian or Chinese publications that were in the native language and available through interlibrary photocopying. It was clear that SciFinder would only be of help if I wanted to open up a big vein for a major cash bleed by purchasing articles blindly.
So, I left work early and went to a nearby university library for some swimming in the deeper waters of knowledge. Within 2 hours I found much of the information I was looking for, and through the miracle of browsing, I blundered into a rich vein of information I probably wouldn’t of thought to have asked for.
If you ask for help in a library, you’ll often get the question: “What are you looking for?” It is a fair question. A librarian is there to help patrons find information. But, very often, a seeker of knowledge sets out with a poor idea of exactly what the best questions are. Some are searching for facts while others search for concepts. It is only by culling through a body of knowledge that one can begin to frame questions that make sense. The best questions give the best answers. Perhaps the librarian should ask if the patron actually knows what they want and drill in from there.
The pursuit of knowledge is not like going to the pharmacy and pulling a prepackaged unit off the shelf. The pursuit of knowledge puts you squarely in front of a problem where the actual struggle begins. Learning is about integrating concepts into your consciousness, and that involves struggle. If you are not willing to struggle with an idea, then you’re not really committed to learn something new.
Too often we go to the library to get answers when instead we should be seeking better questions. I was seeking facts but instead found that my assumptions concerning how certain reactions proceeded was fundamentally in error. I have had to recalibrate my expectations as a result.
Epilog: So, I did my seeking and found some books to check out. At the circulation desk the nice young lady told me that they had no record of me and that I would have to plop down a $75 fee to check books out from the state university library. Luckily I was able to shut my mouth and walk away to fulminate in private.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
This issue of free access bugs me more than your previous entry (assuming that this was a publicly funded university.)
Amen brother. I’m going to have to protest this. It is a bad trend. The ironic thing is that I’m trying hard to compete with China on a certain line of products and I have these fools nickel and diming me along the way.
The Gifted must be crushed lest compassion and diversity vigorously suckled by morons, cripples, and behavorial garbage run short. Rule of the disempowered assures limitless emergence of less qualified, more stupid, endlessly descendingly dysfunctional victims. Social engineering says “cherish them” at gunpoint.
When everybody is a crook, from whom do they steal?
Ok Gaussling:
Lets see if we agree on a few things here. Recent literature (lets say 10 years give or take 5) – searching with scifinder or google or some other search engine is fantastic – choose the wides scope you can browse and then gather your articles electronically.
Older literature – well there’s another story. A few good books – like the silicon book by Colin Eaborn cover a lot of ground. Search engines don’t work because the work hasn’t be cataloged – but give it time, it will be…
but then there is this hydra – the pursuit of knowledge. Whoa – where are we going here? Sure struggle is good – but is it requisite? I don’t know.
I have said this before and I think it is true. I read the NYTimes online and I read the paper edition. They are not the same and what I am attracted to in one, I miss in the other. A good institution has access to both. Searching and browsing yield different results. Both are useful.
My thoughts on these issues are very similar. I wish there would be a day soon when those of us outside of the university system could research without having to pay thirty dollars an article. On a more practical note, did you ever think of bribing a student to see if you could get what you wanted for a cheaper price?
Hi John, It is difficult to be a scholar outside of the university system. It really is a kind of undefined space. Unfortunately, I don’t know any students either. I suppose I could just ask someone at the university what they would suggest.
Hi Bill, You’re right about the newer literature. It is more accessable (sp?) than the older literature. But the older literature seems to have more of the basic stuff in it- preparations of what were then new materials. New lit tends to reference these preps rather than take up space repeating the writeup. So, if you’re in the business of making things, you have to dive into the older lit.
Maybe you know someone in academia (who is not a student) that has access…
Perhaps our german colleagues are snickering right now.
Beilstein and Gmelin provide the details on the old chemistry that is not online and more than that provide details that have been checked and compared when there are multiple literature refs.
I am sure that these are available and much cheaper than they are worth – though not yet down to pennies on the dollar, yet.
I started to learn to use these as an undergraduate, but soon found myself under the influence of CAS and I never developed a high comfort level with Beilstein. Gmelin I only know of through hearsay.
We had the Beilstein subscription here for a while, but had to make a choice between that and SciFinder. SciFinder won the budget battle. I’m now wishing we made a better case for both. I recall that Beilstein had experimental information available. This system- Crossfire- also afforded access to Gmelin as well.
I too fell under the spell of CAS and drifted away from Beilstein.
Around the corner …
Yeah, I know this research prof with his own NMR… (!!)