Foreword.pdf

FOREWORD

The Thirteenth edition of The Merck Index continues the tradition of pub-

lishing a concise, authoritative reference work designed primarily to serve the

needs of chemists, biochemists, pharmacists and those in related professions.

The information is assembled with today’s need for quick reference in mind,

but the commitment to excellence in scientiﬁc scholarship and to enhancing

scientiﬁc communication remains paramount.

This edition contains a diverse collection of over 10,000 monographs. More

than 4,000 monographs are devoted to a wide variety of drugs and pharmaceu-

ticals, over 2,000 describe common organic chemicals and laboratory reagents,

and another 2,000 cover naturally occurring substances and plants. An addi-

tional 1,000 monographs focus on the elements and on inorganic chemicals.

Almost 1,000 pertain to compounds of agricultural signiﬁcance, and several

hundred describe endogenous substances and biological agents.

A number of changes have been made since the Twelfth Edition. The mono-

graph section has been extensively revised and updated. In response to requests

from our readership, the Chemical Abstracts Registry Numbers for title and

derivative compounds have been embedded within the monographs. The deriv-

ative compound data presentation now mirrors the title compound such that

registry numbers, molecular weights and literature references are included in

addition to names and physical properties as in previous editions. Patent data

has been reformatted using the two letter international country codes. The sec-

tion on Organic Name Reactions has been updated and revised; further, the

schema have been standardized. The Miscellaneous Table section has been

redesigned and reordered to enhance access to the ancillary monograph infor-

mation.

To facilitate the use of the information in the electronic age, The Merck

Index will be expanding its electronic offerings from THE MERCK INDEX

THE MERCK INDEX ON-

CD-ROM to include a Web-accessible format.

The latter two formats will be both text and structure searchable. Additionally,

information that we are unable to maintain in print due to size restrictions will

appear as part of the electronic versions.

Changes in size, scope and publishing mechanisms have been made with

each edition to keep pace with the progress in science and information tech-

nologies in order to accommodate the diverse interests of an ever-broadening

and sophisticated readership. In this environment, it is especially gratifying that

so many still refer to The Merck Index on a daily basis. We hope that this

edition, published by Merck & Co., Inc., as a service to the scientiﬁc community

and the public, will prove to be a valuable resource to all.

THE MERCK INDEX on CD-ROM

ON-

LINE SM , and THE MERCK INDEX

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