Foreword

The research project upon which the elaboration of this web page is based consists in the identification and revalorization of printed material and manuscripts dealing with the history of chemistry and preserved in the libraries belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the “Marques de Valdecilla” Historical Library of Universidad Complutense of Madrid UCM) and the Spanish National Library. This project started in 2005 and was founded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (ref: CTQ2004-21483-E), and project HUM2006-26467-E from 3 of April 2007 until 2 of April 2008.
Some preliminary results of this ongoing research work have been presented in national and international conferences as it will be shown below. However, the main result of this study consists in the elaboration of a Virtual Chemical Historical Library, the main instrument to revalorize the aforementioned documents. The identification of historical chemical material has been done, from one side, by a systematic exploration of the catalogues available in these institutions, and the evaluation of the relevance of the materials listed there by crosschecking with the works included in reference catalogues. On the other hand, the opposite procedure has been followed as well, i. e., the works listed in reference catalogues have been searched in the libraries catalogues. The documents that made up this Virtual Chemical Historical Library are offered here as a searchable catalogue of both printed material and manuscripts. The catalogue will be continuously updated along 2008.

In the first step of the project we have concentrated our effort in the repositories belonging to the CSIC libraries and the UCM Historical Library, while the National Library has been searched much less extensively. In the three cases the information already available in the e-catalogues has been used, while the inspection of the corresponding manual catalogues has just been started. The exploration of the documents belonging to the National Library is much complex and time consuming, as very few of the catalogue files contain information on book subjects. The searchable catalogue shown in this web page has been elaborated in this first step of the project, where book title, author, printing year and place are shown for each volume, as well as the references to the book contained in the three major printed catalogues on historical chemical material, as given below. Furthermore, each book listed in the catalogue contains a link to the corresponding library file. In a second step of this work, both the manual and the e-catalogue of the National Library will be systematically explored, and the inventory of the UCM and CSIC libraries will be near to completion. Furthermore, relevant information on each title will be incorporated in the catalogue along 2008.

Main reference works used and cited in the catalogue

1.- Orbiso Viñuelas, A., Lope Oter, I., Serrano Martín, D., Vicente Rosillo, M.S. Catalogue of the Special Collection of the Library of the National Museum of Natural Sciences. Five volumes. Vol 1: manuscripts, incunabila and books printed in XVI and XVII centuries. Vol 2, 3 and 4: Printed material of XVIII century. Vol 5: Printed material of XV-XVIII centurias. Addendum, cumulative index and periodic publications. National Museum of Natural Sciences. Spanisjh nacional Research Council. Madrid, 199-2000.

2.- Ferguson, J. Biblioteca Chemica. A catalogue of the alchemical, chemical and pharmaceutical books in the collection of the late James Young of Nelly and Durris. Vols 1 y 2. John Machehouse and Sons, Glasgow, 1906. The collection is in the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

3.- Duveen, D. I. Bibliotheca Alchemica et Chemica. An annotated catalogue of printed books on alchemy, chemistry and cognate subjects in the library of D. I. Duveen. E. Weill, London, 1949. The collection formerly belonging to D. I. Duveen contains around 3.000 books, and it is in the Universidad of Wisconsin, USA.

4.- Neville, R. G. The Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library. An annotated catalogue of printed books on alchemy, chemistry, chemical technology and related subjects. Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, 2006. This collection contains around 5.000 titles and it is in the Chemical Heritage Foundation (Philadelphia) since 2004.

5.- References to Partington, J. R. History of Chemistry, 4 vols, MacMillan & Co., London, 1964, have been included whenever they were mentioned in the four catalogues used as reference works. In the second step of the project this work will be systematically searched for references to the books included in the catalogue

Acknowledgments

This work would have never come to light without the unreserved and warm support of Ana Santos, the former Directress of the “Marqués de Valdecilla” Historical Library. The continuous support of this Library is deeply appreciated. We also acknowledge the Directress of the Libraries Unit of the CSIC, Agnés Ponsati, and the Technical Directress of the Spanish National Library, Teresa Malo de Molina, and particularly to the member of this institution Juan Delgado, for the facilities given to carry out this work. The Spanish Ministry of Science and Education is acknowledged for the financial support given to this work through the projects mentioned above.