February 28, 2011

DCHE CE Courses at the 2011 Conference

The Chemistry Division will host three continuing education (CE) courses on June 11 & 12, during the SLA 2011 conference in Philadelphia, PA. These hands-on courses will give you skills to enhance your understanding of chemistry fundamentals, chemical information, and specialized structure searching.

To purchase tickets online, go to http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2011/registration/index.cfm. NOTE: You are not required to register for the full conference in order to attend a CE course.

Please spread the word to your colleagues (SLA members or not) who may benefit from the courses. If someone only wishes to attend CE courses, the downloadable registration form (PDF) may be an easier route: http://www.sla.org/PDFs/SLA2011/2011_attendee_reg_form.pdf. Simply choose the “Ticket Only for CE Courses” registration and enter in the course title & details in section 4.

Contact Ted Baldwin (or 513-556-4211) with any questions regarding these courses.

Title: Chemistry for the Non-Chemist Librarian
Date: Saturday, 11 June 2011
Time: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Instructors: Susan Cardinal (U. Rochester), Judith Currano (U. Pennsylvania)

Summary: Any information scientist with responsibilities for providing chemistry reference services should understand the structure and language of chemistry. This course takes a hands-on approach to introduce learners to the basic principles of the five major divisions of chemistry, chemical terminology and drawing, and other intellectual tools that chemists need to do their work. This course contains four sections: an introduction to chemistry as a science, strategies for effective communication with chemists, basic chemical concepts and research questions, and the ways in which chemists' research needs dictate their information needs.
Ticket prices: Student Member $199 , SLA Member $299 , Non-Member $399




Title: Chemical Information Sources, Requests, and Reference
Date: Sunday, 12 June 2011
Time: 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Instructors: Judith Currano (U. Pennsylvania), Dawn French (Millennium Inorganic Chemicals)

Summary: This hands-on course introduces learners to the types of questions that chemical researchers ask and reference sources that can be used to answer them. It will provide an overview of the structure of the chemical literature, types of reference sources in the chemical sciences, unique access points for chemical information, and strategies for an effective search. Informal lectures, interspersed with real-world reference questions, will compare and describe the major chemical information resources.
Ticket prices: Student Member $99 , SLA Member $199 , Non-Member $299




Title: Extreme Structure Searching: Organics, Organometallics, Polymers, and Markush
Date: Sunday, 12 June 2011
Time: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Instructors: Denise Callihan (PPG Industries), Judith Currano (U. Pennsylvania)

Summary: This course will introduce participants to specialized search techniques for small molecules in the chemical literature: profiling organic, organometallic and catalytic substances by substructure, applying structure and substructure search techniques to polymer searching, and using basic substructure and Markush search strategies for patent information retrieval. Participants will learn the basics of creating a substructure, progressing to more advanced techniques and recommendations of where, when, and how to use them. This will be followed by techniques of locating organometallics and polymers using the substructure techniques to patent searching, including learning the basics of Markush searching.
Ticket prices: Student Member $99 , SLA Member $199 , Non-Member $299