The graduate Field of Chemistry comprises 38 faculty members with diverse research interests in both conventional chemistry areas and many interdisciplinary areas such as biotechnolgy, chemical communications, polymer science, and molecular engineering. The faculty currently includes a Nobel laureate, six members of the National Academy of Sciences, seven fellow the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and seven fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Working with the faculty are almost 200 graduate students, numerous resident postdoctoral fellows, visiting scientists, and undergraduate chemistry majors. This includes the chemical processes and phenomena of atoms, compounds, and substances including biological substances.
Chemistry is a foundation science.
It has several subfields and is very interdisciplinary in nature. Addendum describing the research fields of Department of Chemistry faculty provide an in depth look at the varied research a strong chemistry collection can support. Following is a basic outline of our collection development efforts in the Physical Sciences Library. Current purchases focus on new or innovating methods and instrumentation, currently used practices. Weeding of this collection is routine, but care is taken to preserve materials on historical but not currently used techniques.