FIS Historical - Research in Hamburg

The literature database “FIS Historical - Research in Hamburg” was compiled by Prof. Dr. Volkmar Vill (Department of Chemistry). It includes publications and biographies of scientists from Hamburg. For the purposes of this database, “Hamburg” is defined as the city's past and present boundaries, including Altona, Bergedorf, Ritzebüttel, and Geesthacht. Information on individuals who have not published and are not described in biographies is not included. Individuals mentioned exclusively in university registers are generally not included. The database documents active scientific activity in Hamburg even prior to the founding of the university. The relevant institutions can be found under the “Category” heading.

Search Help

General Information About Searching

All words entered in a search field are treated as search terms. A “-” placed before a word excludes that word (NOT logic); otherwise, all words must be found (AND relationship). A “-” between two words requires that both words be found in immediate succession. Alternatively, words can also be enclosed in double quotes (“”).

In numerical search fields, such as Year, Volume, or First Page, a ‘-’ is interpreted as an interval; for example, -2005 denotes an interval up to 2005, 2005-2010 denotes an interval between 2005 and 2010, and 2005- denotes an interval starting in 2005.

Logical operators such as AND and OR are not logical search statements, but ordinary text. Examples: ‘Meier OR Meyer’ searches for all three words ‘Meier’, ‘or’, and ‘Meyer’; ‘Meier -Meyer’ searches for all records that contain ‘Meier’ but not ‘Meyer’.

Special characters are interpreted as follows: ä = ae, ß = ss, γ = g. The German ß is not a search equivalent for the Greek β (beta)!

Fuzzy search terms, typos, etc., are not resolved: ‘Stephan’ does not match ‘Stefan’, ‘Jod’ does not match ‘Iod’, and ‘Phtalat’ does not match ‘Phthalat’.

Notes on the search fields

All fields
You can enter multiple search terms here, each of which will be searched for separately in all fields. ‘Meyer Journal 128 American’ finds ‘Meyer’ as the author, ‘Journal’ and ‘American’ in the journal title, and 128 as the volume number. 'Meyer Journal -American' finds ‘Meyer’ as the author, ‘Journal’ as part of the journal title, and excludes ‘American’ from the results list. ‘Meyer “American Chemical”’ or ‘Meyer American-Chemical’ requires that the words ‘American’ and ‘Chemical’ be found in direct succession.

Author (= Author of articles, Inventors on patents)
Authors can be found using the standard order (first name, last name) or the reversed order (last name, first name): ‘Dennstedt, Max’ finds the publications by Max Dennstedt, since the reversed order is recognized. 'Max Dennstedt' finds the same results without inversion. ‘Dennstedt Max’ would only find results if the last name of one author is ‘Dennstedt’ and the first name of the next author is ‘Max’. Titles of nobility are part of the last name and not the first name. Therefore, a different logic is applied here than in many bibliographic systems. 'Walter von Bebenburg' is found using the search terms: ‘Walter von Bebenburg’ 'von Bebenburg, Walter' The following are unsuccessful: ‘Bebenburg, Walter von’ (incorrect inversion) ‘v. Bebenburg, Walter’ Abbreviations are not expanded. ‘;’ separates two authors, who are considered in any order during the search. 'Meyer; Meier' finds the authors ‘Meyer’ and ‘Meier’. ‘Meyer Meier’ would only find the double-barrelled surname ‘Meyer-Meier’.

Editor (= Book editor, dissertation advisor, patent applicant)
Follows the same formatting rules as the author search. Author/Editor: Searches for a person as an author or editor. Follows the same formatting rules as the author search. Publication Title: This refers to the title of a publication. In the results, this title always appears on the first line. Journal Name: Journal names are stored in the database without abbreviations, e.g.: 'Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals'. Only a continuous substring of this text will yield a match: ‘Crystals and Liquid’ is found; ‘Cryst. Liq. Cryst.’ yields no match. The search term ‘Liquid Crystals’ is found in both ‘Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals’ and ‘Liquid Crystals’. If you want to find only the journal with the exact title, you can enclose the search term in quotation marks, i.e.: ‘“Liquid Crystals”’. Some very commonly used abbreviations can also be used as search terms: ‘J. Am. Chem. Soc.’ also finds 'Journal of the American Chemical Society'.