What happened:

A little over a year ago I began what I would consider serious academic writing.  The first thrust was when I coauthored a book chapter¹ with a colleague of mine (Prof. R.T. Mathers).  My portion of this chapter was a review on terpenic resins; in particular, methodologies developed for their synthesis.  With this being the most comprehensive review of its sort I made sure to include sections on use as well as market related information (note, the publisher omitted a positive sign in one of my schemes for some reason {and I caught several other omissions on the publisher’s part in the next to final draft}).  While in the process of writing this book chapter I requested basic information from a number of manufacturers of terpenic resins.  Despite not being paid to write the review (as it was for an academic audience) not a single producer of terpenic resins offered to lift a hand to help me.  I was a bit shocked at the time.

Next I began writing the most comprehensive review on chemistries developed for the synthesis of polyisobutene and butyl rubber (another work coauthored with Robert).²  Again, I sought basic information for the book.  Specifically I attempted to get ExxonMobil to contribute information that had already been public (in many cases for > 20+ years) and still I ran into a brick wall.  Not only that, but not a single company that does market analyses provided a single piece of data for inclusion in the chapter!  Again, I was not paid to write the chapter and the book was geared towards an academic audience.

Now that I am in the process of writing a series of books on cationic polymerization and having already composed two top notch reviews on polymers made by the technique I thought for sure someone would step up to the plate.  As you will see below, not a single large organization has offered to provide the smallest piece of information.  I made certain to drive home the point to each of these companies that the material requested was already known publically and that the book was for academic purposes!!!

1. Mathers, R.T.; Lewis, S.P.; Monoterpenes as Polymerization Solvents and Monomers in Polymer Chemistry in Green Polymerization Methods: Renewable Starting Materials, Catalysis and Waste Reduction; Mathers, R.T.; Meier, M.A.R., Eds.; Wiley-VCH: New York, 2011, pp. 91-128.
2. Lewis, S.P.; Mathers, R.T. Advances in Acid Mediated Polymerizations in Renewable Polymers, Synthesis, Technology and Processing; Vikas, M., Ed.; Wiley-VCH: New York, 2012, pp. 69-173.