Teaching Chemical Information:
Tips and Techniques

— August 1998 —

What to Teach: The Ideal Graduate Chemical Information Curriculum:
Graduate students and advanced undergraduates

Students at these levels should learn to review the literature before starting any project and should develop good information habits, such as monitoring the current literature. Students should take advantage of sources on the Internet: preprints, sequence databases, listservs, etc.

In addition to the basic skills, these students should learn to:

1. Complete a comprehensive subject search using a variety of sources, e.g. physical chemists should be able to use INSPEC as well as CA.
2. Complete a comprehensive search for information about a compound.
3. Conduct reaction searches.
4. Conduct structure searches.
5. Monitor current literature to stay up-to-date on a topic.
6. Evaluate sources to select those most suitable to answer a specific question.

Grace Baysinger, Head Librarian and Bibliographer
Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library, Stanford University Libraries
graceb@stanford.edu