Chemistry and Science databases
The core chemistry databases offered by Rutgers are SciFinder, Reaxys, and Web of Science. We also now have Scopus, which is similar to Web of Science.
SciFinder is the electronic version of Chemical Abstracts, which is published by ACS. Please see the SciFinder tab and review the tutorials before coming to our library session. We will briefly review searching in SciFinder then.
Reaxys contains content from three major data sources: Beilstein, Gmelin, and the Chemical Patent Database. It is useful for researchers who are investigating organic synthesis, and/or searching for data on physical, chemical, spectral, bioactivity, or toxicological properties of chemical compounds. It also contains information for inorganic substances, and older references dating back to 1771.
Web of Science includes citations and references for articles in almost 9000 high quality, peer-reviewed journals. It provides complete bibliographic data, searchable author abstracts, and cited references. Coverage is strongest in the sciences with more than 6000 journals.
Scopus is a citation and abstract database of peer-reviewed literature that can be used to determine the impact of specific authors, articles/documents, and journals. It contains over 50 million records in the areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage strongest in the physical sciences (7,200+ titles) and health sciences (6,800+ titles).
Other sources
There are several online sources available for finding properties and spectra information. Some of these are available only to Rutgers students and faculty, and others are freely available. See the Properties & Spectra page of the Chemistry research guide for more information.
One that we will briefly review in class is the
NIST Chemistry WebBook. NIST stands for the National Institiute of Standards and Technology. It is a government agency responsible for maintaining standards used in scientific measurement. In addition to thermodynamic data (thermochemical, thermophysical, ion energetic) ; IR, mass, and UV/Vis spectra is also available in this resource.
A good source of chemical information is (surprise!) Wikipedia. The Chemistry portal in Wikipedia is monitored by a dedicated group of chemists, and is a quick way to get information about common substances.
Find chemistry databases
From the Libraries' home page, click on the blue text under the search box which says "View all databases".
Then click on the category "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math". From there, click on the subject heading for Chemistry. The direct link to the chemistry databases is http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/subjects/indexes_sciences#Chemistry
The core databases are listed in the box to the left. Scifinder is the database we will use the most in your lab session, however we will review the others as well.