Chemistry Resources in the Electronic Age

The title of this book promises much. Chemistry itself is at the crossroads of many disciplines nowadays and chemistry resources (here implied as relating to information) are a $billion growth industry. Finding the proverbial chemical needle is increasingly a complex process, and one which intimidates many, requiring as it does both a deep and a detailed knowledge of where to look, how to search, whether to trust, which software to use and how to use the results. The electronic age itself, in one incarnation known as the web, although scarcely more than ten years old, is nevertheless already an unavoidable vast morass of information both good and bad. This book tries to address some of the many, often subtle, issues raised by this new era, and to provide some assistance to those who have neither the time nor the patience to find the hidden needles.

Despite the all‐encompassing title, this book is entirely devoted to just one aspect of this information age, that of finding relevant curriculum materials for those interested in teaching chemistry at both introductory and more advanced levels. To paraphrase the introduction, “we point you to the web's top notch and crème de la crème sites for general and specific information on key topics in chemistry”. After 20 or so pages covering the basics of the web, the bulk of the book comprises approximately one page reviews of around 400 chemistry‐related web sites, and concludes with a brief word‐based index of the content of these sites. It is the sort of book where one heads straight for the index to find the topic of interest, and then dips in to ascertain if the web site is worth visiting; reading the book in linear fashion is likely to hold one's attention rather less.

This sort of book raises some interesting questions. Most obviously, the web is changing so rapidly, that the passage of even a year can bring great changes. This book was published in 2003, and (given the nature of books, about which more later) was probably researched and written much earlier. One wonders how many of the hundreds of sites reviewed are still actually available (in August 2004, when this review was written). I tried five at random and found that three of these gave the dreaded “The requested URL … was not found on this server”. For each, I spent a little while checking my typing, the spelling, and contemplating whether a “zero” might instead be the letter “o” etc. At which point one is reasonably entitled to think “why was this published as a book rather than a web site itself?” As a book, it itself scarcely reflects the electronic age. Of course, as a web site, it perhaps would not be entirely unique (many web sites in fact consist mostly of compendia and reviews of other web sites) and quite possibly as evanescent as some of the sites listed in this book apparently are. As a book, it might bring the author some income, and possible more than a little prestige. After all, it is still absolutely true that a book is regarded by many as a greater scholarly and longer lasting achievement than the creation of a web site. But as a book, the reader (user?) is deprived of many of the benefits of the electronic age. Here one finds interesting contradictions. The index of this book has clearly been created by (probably one human's) effort of cross indexing, but one of the more valuable features of the actual reviews is information on search terms likely to retrieve the site and an explicit suggestion of which search engine to use. These in turn often function by learning from the search queries submitted to them and how people prioritise the initial list of suggestions returned; in effect, these electronic indices are built from the co‐operative efforts of many (chemists), rather than being based on the assessment of a single author. Thus perhaps some discussion in the book of the process of indexing and searching, and how the electronic age could revolutionise this process, would have been a welcome inclusion.

How else could the electronic age change the nature of chemistry resources? One obvious aspect of an electronic representation is that it can be “re‐used”. A trivial example of re‐use is that a web page URL expressed in electronic form as a hyperlink can be invoked (by either human or software program) to open the site, rather than having to be retyped character by character in an error‐prone manner. Another aspect is that resources in electronic form allow both humans and computers to each do what they do best. Computers can process vast amounts of electronic information and, armed with specific rules about what they are searching for, they have the potential to refine it to a more concentrated collection of knowledge about a topic. Humans on the other hand tend to use information creatively, perhaps perceiving new links and connections between information which we associate with knowledge, and in its highest form with genius! Tim Berners‐Lee and Hendler (2001), the original creator of what we now know as the web, has enshrined this in a concept known as the semantic web, which he and an increasing body of people think the conventional web should be heading towards. The semantic web strives to allow both humans and machines to “understand” information by defining the ontologies of a subject and then encapsulating the resulting information in a formal and systematic manner into what has been called a “datument”, a neologism of data and document (Murray‐Rust and Rzepa, 2004). Datuments can then be re‐used and reassembled by machines and humans in a way that far surpasses the cellulose‐based forms we currently call books and journals. Building the semantic web will be an enormous challenge, which if it succeeds, will truly revolutionise chemistry resources in the electronic age. This book does not really attempt to set out or analyse this vision, and is a missed opportunity. But as a compendium of existing, and invariably more conventional chemistry resources, which happen to be delivered by electronic means, it is a useful, if rapidly dating collection for those wishing to teach or develop courses around the subject.