The world wide web and chemistry textbooks on line

Bill Palmer.

Faculty of Education, Northern Territory University, Australia.

Abstract of a paper given in full in the May 1998 edition of Paradigm.

This paper gives an account some of the ways in which the World Wide Web and other information technologies have been used to extend the scope of the history of science generally and the history of chemistry in particular. I observed that the World Wide Web contains a huge number of classical and literary works online, whereas the number of scientific works online is comparatively small. I have taken three actions to try to remedy this deficiency.

1. I set up a WWW page called "Science Textbooks and Historical Science Online", which provides links to science books, which are available online. This WWW page, which was very small has now grown and I receive quite a lot of interested comment.
2. I found a sponsor who has agreed to put 12 chemistry textbooks online, if I could form a committee of knowledgable and interested people and get some agreement on what those textbooks might be.
3. I have started a web page in which a nineteenth century chemistry textbook by Robert Avey Ward is being put online.

I hope that these actions will improve the research tools available to those interested in the history of science.

Table of Contents - Joint Meeting between the Textbook Colloquium and The British Society for the History of Science held on January 10th 1998 at Leeds University.

- The TEXTBOOK COLLOQUIUM

© 1998