"Organic Electronic Spectral Data" was incorporated in 1957 as a journal concentrating on the ultraviolet-visible spectra of organic compounds. The coverage of the literature from 1946 onward was carried out by chemists with special interests in spectrophotometry through a page-by-page search of the major chemical journals. Altogether, more than fifty chemists have searched a group of journals totalling more than a hundred titles during the course of this sustained project.