WHOS TEACHING CHEMICAL LITERATURE COURSES THESE DAYS

This paper reports the results of a survey of the status of chemical literature teaching practices in 259 U. S. chemistry departments with graduate programs. A 90% useful response was obtained in the survey. About 40% of the responding institutions offered a formal chemical literature course. A profile of the course is given. At the remaining institutions, chemical literature is taught by a variety of methods and is integrated in other courses. The teaching emphasizes use of periodicals, indexes, monographs, government documents, and patents in order of decreasing priority. As measured by weighted priority means, the emphasis is comparable at schools with or without formal courses in chemical literature. A small decline in the number of chemical literature courses is ascribed to a faculty preference for integration of chemical literature in other courses or a belief that chemical literature is less important than other courses. © 1969, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.