scitech library question

Courtesy of Dana Roth at CalTech, a review of the new online version of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics:

- Substance search has 5 pre-selected search fields: name (with left/right truncation), MF (Hill order), CAS RN, common formula (e.g. NaCl), and/or MW (value or range*). Each value has a pull down menu (=,>,<, etc.) and a linked 'hints' file.
- Increase in number of interactive tables from 46 to 63. Once the data is displayed, additional options are available (sort, display structure, export table to Excel, etc.)
- Improved table manipulation - access speeds improved, left-hand column lockable for easier viewing

As a reminder, the 84th edition, both print and web versions, include the following important additions:

- Completely revised, reformatted and enhanced Physical Constants of Organic Compounds table. The 11,000 compounds have been selected on the basis of their importance in research, teaching, industrial applications, and health/safety considerations. Structure diagrams have been redrawn and physical constant values have been updated with results from recent literature.
- Chemical carcinogens - are now with updated data from the recent NTP 10th Report on Carcinogens
- Critical Constants table - expanded and updated values of Tc, Pc and Vc, as well as Tb for 858 fluids. These parameters are widely used as input to various estimation schemes. Literature references have been added.
- Other refinements and new topics include: Properties of Refrigerants, Fermi Energy and Related Properties of Metals, Flame and Bead tests, Density of ethanol-water mixtures, Interstellar Molecules, Directory of Physical and Chemical Data Sources, Ionization Potentials of Atoms and Neutron Cross Sections.

*In a search for compounds with a particular MW range, entries appear on the hit list even though the table in the entry does not have a column for molecular weight. This is because a search on a MW range first retrieves all compounds with MW in that range. The hit list that is generated then includes all tables in which one of those compounds appears, regardless of whether there is an MW column in the table. The intention here is to allow Boolean searches in which MW is one of the parameters.

As a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, I would very much appreciate your suggestions regarding "desired features and functionality" as well as any other concerns about its content and functionality.

For those of you with access to the web version, please contact the CRC helpdesk directly if you experience any access problems.

Dana L. Roth
Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32
1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125
626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540

http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm

Our thanks to Dana for submitting this review for STLQ.

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