Science is constantly growing and evolving, with new findings released every day. However, it is often challenging for researchers to stay abreast of the latest information in their field. For students new to research, learning the background details and common techniques required to begin a project can already seem like a daunting task and the growing volume of scientific literature only adds to this undertaking.1 While established researchers have a strong grasp of these concepts, it is incredibly time-consuming to read all of the recently published articles, especially when juggling numerous projects.
Additionally, these problems become amplified by the increasing popularity of interdisciplinary research. Teams collaborating on these projects work together to answer groundbreaking questions that intersect their specialties, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, or engineering, and provide a holistic understanding of a phenomenon. To facilitate these projects, scientists must delve into the intricacies, methodology, and terminology of a new unfamiliar field, which is difficult for all researchers no matter their experience level.2
Navigating the Information Landscape
Many inexperienced researchers turn to textbooks to understand a field’s fundamental findings, but these resources can take a long time to publish, and when they are finally released the information is already out of date. Peer-reviewed research articles and reviews are more current than textbooks, but are often too focused and do not provide a generalized overview of the topic, which is necessary for the initial exploration of a field. Finding a trustworthy resource that strikes a balance between these two source types is essential for improving knowledge dissemination and reducing time spent on literature searches. Scientists can turn to ebooks to fulfill this essential need.
Improving Knowledge Acquisition with Comprehensive and Accessible eBooks
The American Chemical Society (ACS) Publications aspires to help scientists accelerate their research by providing high-quality and in-depth ebooks written and edited by leading experts from around the globe including Nobel laureates. So far, ACS has published over 1,700 ebooks on a variety of topics that span scientific disciplines, such as polymer materials, drug design, microplastics, biofuels, and antimicrobial materials. These easy-to-read resources allow researchers to stay up to date on several topics without having to search for recently published articles. Furthermore, scientists can pick and choose which of the ebook’s chapters they would like to explore and download only those sections as PDFs.
The ACS collection includes three helpful ebook series: Advances in Chemistry, ACS Symposium Series, and Medical Chemistry Reviews.
The Advances in Chemistry series consists of peer-reviewed ebooks released between 1949 and 1998. At the time, this collection enabled researchers to publish content about topics that were not discussed in the ACS journals. This series is the predecessor of the currently produced ACS Symposium Series.
The ACS Symposium Series encompasses a collection of peer-reviewed ebooks published over the last 50 years. These resources enable researchers to self-learn about key developments in established and emerging topics in chemistry and adjacent scientific disciplines. The ebooks’ subject matter is often inspired by presentations and discussions at ACS symposia or directly proposed by scientists. The individual chapters are written in the styles of primary research articles, perspectives, or literature reviews.
ACS acquired Medical Chemistry Reviews in 2022, and ACS’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry publishes new volumes annually. These review articles highlight timely topics important to drug discovery researchers, such as the drugs that the United States Food and Drug Administration approved during that year.
Overall, the ACS ebook collection provides researchers with the information that they require to make the next big scientific breakthroughs.
- Li Y. Finding the most valuable references for interdisciplinary research. Indoor Air. 2019;29(1):3-4.
- Ingersen A, et al. Should young researchers engage with interdisciplinary research? Acta Physiol. 2023;239(3):e14053.
