During the past ten years a variety of methods involving mass spectrom etry have been developed for the analysis of environmentally important compounds. Much has been accomplished in that period to solve some of the important problems in the field. Growth of this methodology and its accomplishments has reached the point where an individual scientist can no longer have an in-depth knowledge of all the areas involved. We have attempted to provide this in-depth picture to those scientists con cerned by having the important topics treated by experts in the subject matter. In order to provide all the relevant material in one volume we begin with the general topics which provide the basic background material necessary to understand the techniques discussed in the in-depth topics. These general chapters are kept brief, containing only the essentials needed by the working scientist to deal with the practical applications. References in these chapters are chosen to permit a more complete study of each chapter. The concept for this book was developed during the activities of two of the editors under a NATO travel grant. These editors gratefully acknowledge this support which made the initial planning of this book possible. The editors would like to thank the individual authors of each chap ter for their cooperation and generously giving of their time for this project."

The book begins by covering the basic principles of both gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectrometry (MS) to the extent necessary to understand and deal with the data generated in a GC-MS analysis. The focus then turns to the particular requirements created by a direct combination of these two techniques into a single instrumentation system. The data generated and their use are covered in detail. The role of the computer and its specific software receives special attention, especially in the matter of compound identification via mass spectral search techniques. GC-MS-computer instrumentation has reached such a plateau of excellence today that the present commercial systems will not be obsolete for a long time to come. Therefore, a detailed description of these systems is not only informative but is also pertinent to the subject matter of this book. Finally, representative applications and results obtained with GC-MS-computer techniques are presented and chosen in such a way as to permit extrapolation of specific applications to similar problems encountered by the reader. To aid the reader in mastering the subject matter and increase understanding, interpretation problems and suggested readings are included. The format is instructional, informative and application-oriented with material presented in such a way as to be useful to a broad spectrum of people.
The book serves as a text in its own right.
The software package Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry: A Knowledge Base, by F.A. Settle, Jr. and M.A. Pleva provides rapid access to a wealth of current information in the GC-MS field. Its three diskettes (51/4 inch) allow the user three ways to access: the index mode, the tree mode and a keyword search mode. The package may be purchased separately and is available for the IBM-PC and compatibles.
The software provides a valuable supplement to the book.