The Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry (Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie) or simply Gmelin is a multi-volume collection of data and information on inorganic and organometallic compounds. Most of the print volumes are available in the Lockwood Science & Engineering Reference Collection (call number REF QD 151.G63) on the first floor of the Lockwood Library. We stopped purchasing Gmelin in 1993, and print Gmelin ceased publication in 1997. Most but not all 1994-1997 volumes have been acquired by the library on the used book market.
Since 1971, organometallics are heavily covered, except for compounds with Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba central atoms. Those excepted compounds are covered in the Beilstein Handbook. Included in Gmelin are compounds with metal-carbon bonds except carbides, cyanides, cyanates, and thiocyanate.
The print edition ceased publication at the end of 1997, however our University at Buffalo's subscription ended in 1993. As affordable used volumes become available, they are being purchased by our library. UB does not subscribe to the electronic version available exclusively on the Elsevier platform,Reaxys. The print and electronic versions are not equivalent with each version containing significant content not found in the other format.
Volumes published after about 1982 are published in English. Although volumes prior to 1982 are in German, English table of contents and section headings in the page margins are provided for all but the very oldest volumes. Patrons willing to take on the challenges of using a mostly German language source are rewarded by the superb and comprehensive content of this resource.
Gmelin contains such information as:
An advantage to using Gmelin is that it covers professional literature prior to 1907 not covered by SciFinder (Chemical Abstracts). In addition, Gmelin often provides the actual physical data and tables rather than just a reference to the original scientific literature and patents. However, researchers should always consult both Gmelin and SciFinder as unique material will be found in both resources.
A complete list of all published print Gmelin volumes was scanned by the University Libraries and made publicly available with the permission of the publisher. See link to the pdf below.
