The book Chemical Components of Source Plants in Traditional Chinese Medicine (three-volumes, compiled by Jia-Ju Zhou, et al., scientists of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and published by the Science Press, Beijing, 2009) is a large-scale handbook derived from the authors' long-term studies on chemical and pharmacological characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This book of 9.6 million words includes 23 033 chemical components isolated from 6700 medicinal plants, collected from 5507 articles published before 2005 in both Chinese and international journals. It introduces and integrates a great number of recently worldwide research accomplishments into the information system of TCM.