------ Forwarded Message
From: Eric Scerri <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: A Forum for Discussion of the History of the Philosophy of
Science <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:13:19 -0800
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Fwd: Virtual book exhibition/ The Periodic System and the Elements

Dear List Members,

I recently travelled to Barcelona to speak at a one-day homage to
Mendeleev.  In addition the University of Barcelona has assembled
together a large virtual collection of books and original articles on
the periodic system and on the elements at a display in their
chemistry department.  A website has now been constructed around this
display and provides an excellent resource on books and papers on the
periodic system and the elements.  This is perhaps the best available
such collection to date.

The entries have now been translated into English.

After getting to the website given below, move over the book shelves
and click to see details on the books or articles concerned.  Then
click once either above or below the book covers shown in order to
obtain bibliographic information.  This also includes downloadable
pdf files of many of the original articles by the pioneers of the
periodic system including Dumas, Ampere, Lothar Meyer, Mendeleev,
Winkler, De Chancourtois, Werner, Moseley, Bury and many others.

I'm told that the poster at the center of the display will soon be
translated into English too.  In any case Catalan is not so difficult
to understand if you can read Spanish and French.

regards,
eric scerri

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Begin forwarded message:

>
> Dear Eric:
>  The exhibition of our Library on the elements and Mendeleev can be
> already be accessed at
>
> http://www.bib.ub.edu/evirtuals/mendeleiev/1024.html
>
> Please feel free to distribute it this address to whoever might be
> interested.
>
> Best regards.
>   Santiago
> ******************************************
> Prof. Santiago Alvarez
> Departament de Química Inorgànica
> Universitat de Barcelona
> Martí i  Franquès, 1-11
> 08028 Barcelona - Spain
>
> ******************************************
> Tel. +34-93-402 1269
> Fax +34-93-490 7725
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>

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----------------
The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance, by Eric Scerri,
Oxford University Press, 2007.

        Named as "Outstanding Academic Book for 2007" by Choice
Library Magazine.

Reviews
Eric Scerri's new book is a most appropriate work to mark the
centenary of the death of Dimitri Mendeleev. The title‹The Periodic
Table: Its Story and Its Significance‹gives a fair idea of the book's
contents, and the author's approach and perspective are captured by
his statement that he is concentrating on "the fundamental scientific
and philosophical ideas that underpinned the evolution of the
system." This, then, is a book about scientific ideas. Scerri does
provide brief biographical sketches of each of his scientific
protagonists, but biographical, social and cultural context rarely
intrude into the narrative.  Seymour Mauskopf in American Scientist.

"Eric Scerri is something of a rara avis. Scerri's philosophical
orientation enriches the text by raising a number of thought-
provoking issues...The book under review here is clearly and engaging
written and meticulously researched with 42 pages of notes."--
Journal of Chemical Education

"The quality is not merely skin deep, there is a real scholarship
inside...I would have been proud to have written this book rather
than just contributing one image."-- Education in Chemistry

''This is undoublty a book that every practising chemist and
chemistry educator should read because of it's far-reaching
implications for understanding the nature of the periodic law and the
challenges it presents to contemporary portrayals of the Periodic
Table."-- Newsletter of International History, Philosophy and Science
Teaching Group

"The Perodic Table:Its Story and its Significance should be of great
interest and value to chemists and particularly to those chemists who
teach about what makes up us, our world, and our science."-- Journal
of Chemical Education

"It is an extermely rare occurrence to have the privilege of
reviewing a book that is truly the definitive work in its field: The
Periodic Table by Scerri is such a book."-- Rayner Canham,
Foundations of Chemistry.

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Dr. Eric Scerri,
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry,
UCLA,

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