A resource so tangible it is difficult to lift is now available in digital formats, and the experience of one user underscores the advantages this offers
Among printed chemical reference works, one that stands out for its integrity, detail and longevity is the Merck Index.
This encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs and biologicals has 10,250 monographs, 446 named reactions and 23 additional tables.
The subjects covered include human and veterinary drugs, biologicals and natural products, agricultural chemicals, industrial and laboratory chemicals, and environmentally significant compounds. What makes the Merck Index so valuable is its extensive coverage. The information provided includes chemical, common and generic names, trademarks, CAS registry numbers, molecular formulas and weights, physical and toxicity data, therapeutic and commercial uses, and literature citations.
Merck and Co, the publisher of the Merck Index, has chosen CambridgeSoft to produce the complete contents of the 13th edition in a fully searchable ChemOffice format.
So in addition to the standard searches performed by hand with the paper edition, compound monographs can now be searched by ChemDraw structure as well as substructure.
Moving this information to the fully searchable ChemOffice format makes it easier and faster to search and get results.
Instead of consulting the auxiliary indices and then turning to the actual monograph, all searching can be done from a single form.
Having the Merck Index in ChemOffice format confers another valuable benefit: integration with other information sources.
For example, after locating a substance in the Merck Index, it is a simple matter to copy the name, structure or other data elements to search ChemACX Database to find out whether there are commercial suppliers of the substance.
The structures could also be used as input to Chem3D to obtain three-dimensional models and to perform electronic structure and physical property calculations. Information can also be brought into a ChemOffice desktop or enterprise solution, including ChemDraw/Excel, ChemFinder/Word, E-Notebook and Registration System.
The Merck Index is available in two ChemOffice compatible formats.
The desktop edition is a CD-Rom in a ChemFinder database format, for use by an individual researcher.
The enterprise edition is designed for workgroups and larger user communities and is served by ChemOffice WebServer. The Merck Index is also available through your favourite web browser.
Some people may be reluctant to relinquish their tatty, well-thumbed hard copy of the Merck Index.
After all, it's a tangible resource (in fact so tangible, it's difficult to lift!) and the answers are there in black and white - there's something reassuring about that.
We can tell you about the benefits of changing to the electronic version, but it probably won't hold much weight - not half as much weight as the paper edition! The best way to demonstrate the benefits of the electronic version is with a real-life example showing the differences it's time-saving features have made to a user's everyday productivity.
My new 'Old Faithful'.
Ernie Linek is a senior partner with the intellectual property law firm of Banner and Witcoff. Ernie's career started as a staff chemist with Merck in Rahway, New Jersey.
While at Merck, Ernie went to night law school and after graduation became a patent attorney, first at Merck, and later in Boston, where he has been in private practice since 1984.
"I have owned six editions of the Merck Index since I first bought a used version of the 7th edition in high school, and have always found each edition to be a valuable asset in connection with my studies and my work.
As a chemist working for Merck, I used my 9th edition on a daily basis.
When I worked for Merck they gave you a new copy of the Index free.
If you want to see the compound I attempted to 'derivatise' as a chemist at Merck then visit monograph No 9385.
None of my derivatives were very good as drug candidates, so I went to law school to become a patent attorney.
As a chemical patent attorney, looking up information in the Merck Index continues to be an almost daily event - everything from chemical reaction information, reagent background information, or patent background information - I know it is there.
the Merck Index contains so much information of use to inventors and their patent attorneys that it is cited as a background reference on the face of over 4000 US Patents granted since 1975.
My newest edition of the Merck Index was again to be the hardbound version of the 13th edition.
I always thought that nothing could replace my 'old faithful' book version since I had become so used to the look and the feel of the book that it made it hard to put down. However, the shear weight of the book also sometimes made it hard to pick up! So, moving with the times, I decided to give the CD-Rom version of the 13th edition a try.
After only a few hours of browsing, the CD-Rom version became my new 'old faithful' as it has shown itself to be both much faster and much easier to use than the book form.
The set-up is quick and easy.
Searching is quick and easy.
Every aspect of this electronic version is just a pleasure to work with.
Structures of compounds can readily be imported into my patent applications, with a simple copy and paste.
Anyone who has ever looked at an edition of the Merck Index knows that each edition contains a huge amount of information.
The old standards of the hardbound versions are repeated in the CD-Rom version - human and veterinary drugs, basic chemical reagents, chemical terms, a company register, alchemical symbols, abbreviations and definitions, indicator list, drug prescription notations, medical radioactive isotope information, name reactions, and SI units. Any searching for these standards is now just a mouse click away. No more thumbing through pages to find what you need.
You name the search topic, and click - you are there.
The ChemFinder underpinning means the Merck Index is searchable not only by keyword, but by chemical structure and substructure too.
One can search on properties, such as turbidity or stability.
If you want to, you can search using the CAS Registry numbers.
Patent attorneys often search for compounds using 'therapeutic category' or under the 'use' of a compound.
Where the CD-Rom wins hands down over the print edition and, perhaps justifies its cost, is in structure and substructure searching. One uses ChemDraw to sketch or import a molecule or moiety of interest and the program quickly tracks it down or its chemical cousins.
One downside I found is that some information sheets contained in the Merck Index are provided as Adobe PDF files (SI units), while others are offered as Windows Help files (name reactions), which I don't find as easy to search.
However, this is not too much of a problem as they are accessible from the program's front end.
The Merck Index installs quickly, taking just a few megabytes of disk space for the executables, drivers, bitmaps and such.
You do have to install ChemOffice Net, which is included on the CD-Rom, because The Merck Index runs as a ChemFinder database.
The installation went smoothly and caused no problems with any other programs on my Windows 2000 machine. Overall, I would rate the database a 5 out of 5.
The Merck Index, 13th edition, on CD-Rom comes as part of ChemOffice Ultra 2002. ChemOffice is supplied and supported in the UK and Ireland by Adept Scientific.
