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Vol. 31 No. 5
September-October 2009
Gold Book Update
It’s not quite a precious resource, but the Gold Book online just became a lot more valuable. Significant enhancements have been made to the electronic version of the IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology over the past few months. In June 2009, release 2.1.0 was made public—a major, new update with almost 300 entries either added or updated. This version also includes other improvements, such as better positioning of mathematical formulas on a line, acronyms as part of the title in the alphabetical index, improved support for names of characters (such as alpha, lambda) in full-text search, improved alternative text for images of mathematical formulas, and other smaller changes. The release also provides a brand new structure search that complements the standard text-based search.
In July 2009, software tools were introduced that enable the automatic addition of links to Gold Book terms contained in PDFs and HTML documents. The software tools are placed separately on SourceForge, which allows for easier collaboration on the software. The “Goldify” project consists of several parts:
- Java—This is the main tool, the goldify program itself, written in Java and containing both a stand-alone and a client-server version.
- Javascript—This directory contains a JavaScript version of goldify which allows client-side addition of links to Gold Book terms. It is completely separate from the Java version.
- Resources—These are XML files which describe the terms defined in the XML Gold Book. They are used by the java tool and are also a good resource for third-party tools.
One readily available resource that has been “goldified” is IUPAC’s own scientific journal Pure and Applied Chemistry (PAC). Each PAC abstract now has seamless links back to Gold Book entries. More than 1800 abstracts have terms that link back to the Gold Book, generating a total of 17 758 links! Links are made “on-the-fly”—this way the original abstracts are not modified, making future changes more manageable and keeping the load on the server pretty small.
Browse the Gold Book at <http://goldbook.iupac.org> and see from PAC, how it works at <www.iupac.org/publications/pac>.
For feedback/comments/ideas, please contact project leader Bedrich Kosata <[email protected]>.
Page last modified 14 September 2009.
Copyright © 2003-2009 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.
Questions regarding the website, please contact [email protected]
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