CHF Debuts Rare Book Collection

T HE CHEMICAL HERITAGE FOUNdation (CHF) has purchased—for $10 million—the Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library, a collection of roughly 6,000 rare volumes spanning six centuries of science and covering topics such as mining, metallurgy, physics, chemistry alchemy, botany, and medicine. CHF debuted the collection on April 19 with a public display, reception, and keynote address by Lawrence M. Principe, a professor of chemistry and of the history of science, medicine, and technology at Johns Hopkins University As a scholar in residence at CHF, Principe is one of the first academicians to study the Neville library in depth. "CHF now holds one of the most important collections of the early history of chemistry in the world," he said. "Speaking as a historian of science, I know that if I were to try to locate another repository with this volume, this depth, and this breadth of material elsewhere, I would be ...