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Science of Synthesis : Houben-Weyl Methods of Molecular Transformations is available on the Web to UT-Austin users.
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What is it?
Science of Synthesis is a highly organized and authoritative treatise on organic synthetic methods. Extensive review chapters are written by recognized experts, and contain full experimental procedures and background information. Its goal is to provide a direct path through the mass of primary literature to the pertinent data on a comprehensive range of organic reactions. Thieme began publication of SoS in 2000, and it is planned to occupy 49 volumes by its completion. About six new volumes are published each year.
How does it relate to SciFinder Scholar and Beilstein (MDL) Crossfire?
Science of Synthesis is a self-contained reference work, analogous to a treatise or encyclopedia, that is highly proscribed and planned and written by experts. By contrast, Chemical Abstracts (via SciFinder Scholar) is an open-ended bibliographic index to the entire chemical literature, broadly defined. Beilstein (via MDL Crossfire) is a database of organic compounds and reactions derived from a selected subset of the chemical journal literature. Neither SciFinder or Beilstein contains authored, textual descriptions of synthetic procedures, though they provide plentiful links to the primary literature on these topics.
Science of Synthesis complements these two important tools and should be used in conjunction with them. Unlike SciFinder or Beilstein, it is browsable by a hierarchical table of contents as well as searchable by structure and keyword. A chemist looking for background information on the present knowledge of a type of synthetic method or class of compounds would want to start in SoS and follow up with searches for structures/reactions and/or keywords in SciFinder Scholar, and for structures/reactions in Beilstein. Science of Synthesis chapters provide numerous references to the journal literature, but these are selective, not comprehensive.
Connecting
Links to Science of Synthesis can be found on Chemistry Library web pages, in the
Databases area, and in
Find an Article. Science of Synthesis is available to authorized off-campus users who log in with UT EID via the library's proxy server. (Be sure to connect via a link on a library web page that contains the proxy server URL prefix.) On the Science of Synthesis home page, click the Login button.
Compatible Browsers: PC: IE 5.5+, Firefox 1.5+; Mac: Safari 2.0+.
Pop-up blockers must be disabled in your browser. Some Windows users have reported problems connecting when firewalls are active.
Organization
Each volume covers a specific class of compound. Volumes are organized into
Categories, which are in turn broken down into narrower specialty volumes.
You can search by exact or sub-structure, reaction, and keywords. Searches can be refined with CAS registry numbers, catalysts and solvents, reaction temperature, or yield. You can also browse the available volumes via detailed tables of contents. Bibliographic searching of references (by author, book/journal title, year) is also possible.
Structure Drawing
The user has a choice of three drawing tools: a built-in Java applet, ISIS Draw, or ChemDraw. (The last two require separate software on your computer.) You can also upload Molfiles from a local disk. To use the Java applet your browser must have java enabled.
Help
A
Tutorial that provides some guided search examples is available for download. Other help pages are available on the Science of Synthesis web site.
Science of Synthesis in print
SoS volumes are published in print first, and are added to the online version in data loads twice a year. Thus the library may have several new volumes on the shelf that are not yet represented online.
The published volumes of SoS are available in the Chemistry Library, along with the the complete 4th edition of Houben-Weyl. They are shelved in Reference range R8, behind the Handbook Table.
The PDF full text of the 4th Edition of Houben-Weyl (1952-2003, in German or English) is also available through the online Science of Synthesis. The 4th edition is not searchable in the same way as the new edition is; access is mainly by browsing the tables of contents, or by selecting from graphical representations of families of molecules and functional groups. Chapters of the new 5th edition also contain links to related information found in the 4th edition.
More Information?
For more information about Science of Synthesis at UT-Austin, including questions about access, contact the Chemistry Library by
email or phone 512-495-4600.
