Teaching Students How to Find Physical and Thermodynamic Properties of Chemical Substances

I taught this even during my early days at the NJIT Libraries. Back then I brought a book cart of the printed data compilations such as:

• The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
• Langes Handbook
• JANAF Thermochemical Tables

As the years passed more resources became available on the web for free. I also say that for common substances there are usually several places where they can find the same information. Sometimes there is a conflict of values. Over the years I have compiled a web site with lists of resources where they may find physical and thermodynamic data. I even show how they may even by lucky and find properties of a substance by doing a Google search.

I give them an assignment based on what I cover in the lecture. Students are not allowed to use the Wikipedia. Every semester students seem to find one or more resources not familiar to me. I always say that there is more than one way to skin a cat when trying to find this type of information.