Every month, the LIC will recommend a free of charge chemical information resource based on our experiences of answering members' queries at the Chemical Enquiries Help Desk.

You may find this regular feature useful for

• improving the scope of your research
• increasing awareness of freely available resources
• finding out more about the potential of familiar resources                  

The IUPAC Gold Book is our resource of the month where you will find definitions of a large number of technical terms used in chemistry.  The Compendium of Chemical Terminology is popularly referred to as the "Gold Book", in recognition of the contribution of the late Victor Gold, who initiated work on the first edition.

This interactive compilation is provided by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).  It is one of the IUPAC series of "Colour Books" on chemical nomenclature, terminology, symbols and units.  The IUPAC Goldbook collects together terminology definitions from IUPAC recommendations already published in Pure and Applied Chemistry and in the other Colour Books. Since publication of the book it has been updated electronically, including the glossaries mentioned above. This revised version can be searched to give the definitions of entries containing the search term, quoting the location and, if required, a pdf file for the definition.

Information can be retrieved by browsing the various indexes e.g. the alphabetical, thematic and acronym indexes or by word searching.  Terms are hyperlinked, open in their own window and are represented graphically to allow ease of navigation through related terms.  

An online version of the Compendium is freely available on the IUPAC website.

Check out the free of charge chemical information link for other useful resources