This morning I received the E-mail from the Organic Division of ACS informing the membership that we will no longer receive the annual Organic Synthesis paperback at part of our membership. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but I still felt a sting.
No mater how hard we try, keeping up with the literature is always a challenge. Each year when Org. Syn. would arrive I would put it on my "leafing pile". This is a pile of stuff that I leaf through when I have a few moments to kill between meetings or that I take for plane trips. Back in the olden days this pile included paper journals, but my access to those went digital long ago.
Leafing is a great education. I would catch chemistries that helped in my research or gave me new research ideas. It helped me recognize new conceptual and experimental trends in the science which I would then make a point to read about. To the extent that I keep my knowledge of the latest organic science fresh I attribute a good bit to leafing through journals and looking at papers that I would never have looked at based on a title or graphical abstract.
I guess I need to find new ways to keep up and watch for trends. Thankfully, in the mean time my annual copy of Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry arrived last week from the ACS Med. Chem. Division.
T.S. Hall
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