Stephen A. Koch, Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3400, Fax: 631-632-7960, Stephen.Koch@sunysb.edu, Phone: 631-632-7944
The 1997 discovery, that the hydrogenase enzymes have cyanide as native ligands for iron in their active sites, caused the author to begin research in the area of iron-cyanide chemistry. The fact that this area has been under active investigation for more than 300 years provided interesting challenges when it came to doing literature searches of previous work. The recent availability of backfiles of digitized/searchable journals and the even more recent availability of digitized/searchable chemistry books have greatly aided this effort. Most important, reading and understanding the early work in the area has actually had a direct effect on our current research direction. As an added bonus, the ability to integrate 18th and 19th century chemistry and chemists with my research results has made my lectures on my research work much more interesting and enjoyable. My approach to using digitized 18th and 19th century books and journals will be presented.