BEILSTEIN

Why Teach?
* The most comprehensive reference on organic compounds
* Not everything is in Chemical Abstracts - Beilstein coverage begins 1779.
* All information on a compound is gathered in one place
Teaching Points:
* The 4th edition of the Beilstein's Handbuch der Organischen Chemie published in 1918 consists of a Main Work and 5 Supplementary Series of updates.

Series

Abbreviation

Literature Coverage

Main Work H up to 1909
1st Supplement E1 1910-1919
2nd Supplement E2 1920-1929
3rd Supplement E3 1930-1939
4th Supplement E4 1950-1959
5th Supplement E5 1960-1979
* Whatever new information on a compound published during a time period appears in that supplement.
* Only the 5th Supplement is in English; earlier in German.
* Organized by functional group according to a hierarchy. Three divisions: acyclic, isocyclic, and heterocyclic are used and 17 functional groups are considered as registry compounds.
* Each functional group always appears in the same volume.
* Teach students to use chart which assigns Beilstein volume to particular functional group.
* Printed indexes:
* Compounds with functional groups other than 17 are derivatives. Teach students how to hydrolyze these other functional groups to get registry compounds.
* Compounds are found only in volume for functional group which appears latest in hierarchy.
* Online database contains all compounds from 1779.
* Online database may be searched by name, formula, structure, ranges of property values.
Available:
* Print: Beilstein Information Systems
* Online: STN, Dialog (File 390). On dialog, Beilstein is available in the CIP plan.
* Crossfire: Inhouse database; University consortia
Teaching Materials:
Beilstein home page tutorial links
Beilstein materials from the CCIIM
Beilstein Crossfire training at MIMAS
Luckenback, Reiner. "Der Beilstein," ChemTech, 1979, October 1979, 612-621.
SANDRA - a PC program that locates references to correct printed volume for compounds. Available from Beilstein Information Systems.
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Last Modified: July 08, 1999
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