Series - Publications and Reports

The records in this series document the publications and reports written or co-written by Harris. Materials date from 1939 to 2011 and are arranged by subject. The document types include correspondence, photographs, articles, revisions, and notes regarding published materials or reports. There is a considerable amount of materials on “Chemical Analysis 2nd edition” by HA Laitenen and WE Harris; HA (Herb) Laitenen had written the first edition and asked WE Harris to help with the second edition. This book helped to give wide-spread recognition of the Chemistry Department at the University of Alberta. Another significant portion of the materials is devoted to the evolution of a laboratory manual culminating with the publication "Chemical Analysis: An Intensive Introduction to Modern Analysis" by WE Harris and B. Kratchovil. To accompany this book, the authors produced "Teaching Introductory Analytical Chemistry" as the teaching assistant's manual for Chemistry 312. This included information like teaching philosophy, laboratory organization, details of common student problems with individual experiments and grading. Notable early work includes Harris’ M.Sc. Thesis "The Distribution of Selenium in Alberta” and his PhD thesis “The Polarography of Uranium”. This series also includes the report “The Determination of Mercaptan in Latex by Amperometric Titration with Silver Nitrate in Ammoniacal Alcoholic Medium” written in conjunction with IM Kolthoff for the wartime rubber project. As well, the series includes the first book published in the department of chemistry at University of Alberta entitled “Programmed Temperature Gas Chromatography” co-written with HW Habgood. Other notable publications relate to Harris’s committee work such as “Low Dose Risk Assessment”, articles on PCB and dioxins, as well as, bioethanol. The materials were all collected by Harris except for a volume that was compiled and bound by the secretaries of the Chemistry Department as a gift to WE Harris.

Also see accession 1981-159 “Harris-Kratochvil Computer Manuscript” for additional information on the publication “Chemical Analysis: An Intensive Introduction to Modern Analysis”.