The value of a reference interview looms large for this question, but when faced with no clue at all, the best place to start is using a dictionary. However, the word 'buckyballs' could not be found in a number of them, including the Collins English Dictionary. So the next step was to use the old faithful Internet search, and upon entering the word 'buckyballs,' an amazing amount of interesting information was retrieved. Right away, it was apparent that this was a science and technology question.
One thing to point out here is the great value the Internet plays in the dissemination of scientific information. It really was the explosion in the field of science after World War II and the need for quick access to this information in the scientific community that was the impetus for the World Wide Web, and scientists use it and e mail for the exchange of ideas and new discoveries. One must still use caution when directing a patron to a scientific website, but they are another really good place to start an investigation for knowledge and the science articles are usually filled with long reference lists for further study.
In this case, a Scientific American page was the first site, and it provided information on the subject of buckyballs, as well as the name of the lead scientist in the field: Richard Smalley, who, along with colleagues (Robert Curl, Jim Heath, Sean O'Brien, and the person who wrote the first article on buckyballs Harold Kroto), discovered this important new form of carbon in the 1980s during experiments aimed at understanding the mechanisms by which long chain carbon molecules are formed in interstellar space. The web page also provided the name of the first article published on the topic and a link to Richard Smalley's homepage at Rice University where he is a professor of Physics and Chemistry. His site (http://smalley.rice.edu) has a list of all his articles, including the one we are interested in for this question, entitled C 60: Buckminsterfullerene (see attached). Finally, the other valuable pieces of information gleaned from these sites were the proper name for buckyballs - Buckminsterfullerenes, named after the geodesic dome because of its similar shape, and invented by Buckminster Fuller; and the fact that these scientists won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Buckminsterfullerenes in 1996.
Once I knew it was a science question, dictionaries and encyclopaedias specializing in the discipline seemed to be the next stage in the search strategy, and there are some very good ones being published. For instance, The New York Public Library Science Desk Reference had two entries on buckyballs, the curious carbon chemical whose chemical name is C 60, consisting of sixty carbon atoms, and resembling a soccer ball. This is of course the reason why a university soccer team would use the word buckyballs as the namesake for a soccer team, and the players would most likely be from the chemistry or physics department, or scientists of some sort.
Another good quick reference tool for this question is The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, which has a nice two page entry explaining who discovered it, why it is so important, and possible uses. Finally, the Dictionary of Scientific Literacy by Richard P. Brennan has a small entry on buckyballs, and there is enough information to get a patron going in the right direction. Referred to in scientific literature as C60, buckyballs are microscopic spheres of 60 atoms of pure carbon in a structure that resembles an exotic soccer ball (Scientific American). Before the discovery of buckyballs, carbon was most commonly thought of in two of its naturally occurring forms graphite and diamonds.
Buckyballs represent a third form of carbon. As Craig Segawa writes,
Perhaps the most exciting characteristic of the buckyball is that it is hollow on the inside, and Smalley insists that all elements in the periodic table will fit inside. This could create any number of practical uses, the most notable being in the field of medicine. Drugs could be administered molecularly, or more importantly, individual radioactive molecules could be contained with in the buckyball for specific treatment of cancer, compared to chemotherapy, which bombards the patient with low level yet relatively large quantities of radiation (Segawa).
At first glance, this question seemed very complicated, so much so that I had not considered even trying to answer it. Recently, I have been involved with doing some follow up questioning of reference librarians for a research study, and it is surprising how many of them have said that questions that seem to be the easiest, often end up being the hardest in the long run, and questions like this one on buckyballs, which seemed difficult at the beginning involve very few steps, and are basically ready reference questions that are easily answered. It is always important to remember this kind of thing when we work on reference desks make sure you consider the question carefully, get as much information as you can from the patron, and do use the resources that are at the reference desk because they are often the best place to start.
However, that is only the beginning, since the lead researchers for Buckminsterfullerenes, as well as a multitude of scientists around the world are continuing to make breakthroughs, find uses for, and cheaper ways to manufacture this expensive form of carbon, there is a large amount of information available for an interested patron. Besides the Internet, there are countless numbers of journal articles, which can be accessed through the Dialog group of databases, along with many scholarly monographs such as Electronic Structure Calculations on Fullerenes and their Derivatives by Jerzy Cioslowski, for the more advanced.
Bames Svarney, Patricia, ed. The New York Public Library Science Desk Reference. New York: Macmillan.
Brennan, Richard P. 1992. Dictionary of Scientific Literacy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Davidson, Michael W. March 18, 1998. The Buckyball Collection. Available: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/micro/gallery/bucky/bucky.html
Kroto, H.W., J.R. Heath, S.C. O'Brien, R.F. Curl, and R.E. Smalley. 1985. C 60: Buckminsterfullerene. Nature 318: 162 163.
Scientific American. August 20, 1993. Nanotechnology: Scoring with Buckyballs.
Segawa, Craig. The Buckyball: An Excruciatingly Researched Report. Available: http://www.insite.com.br/rodrigo/bucky/buckyball.txt
Travers, Bridget, ed. The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. New York: Gale Research.