Supplementary Information
Review and Comparison of Chemical Databases: SciFinder, Reaxys, and Web of Science Neelam Bharti*,1, Michelle Leonard1 and Shailendra Singh2 1
Marston Science Library, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL-32611
2
Division of Environmental, Health and Safety, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL-32611
*E-mail: neelambh@ufl.edu SciFinder® (Chemical Abstract Services, American Chemical Society) SciFinder was introduced in 1995 by the Chemical Abstract Services (CAS) as a research tool to assist scientists in finding chemical literature. Later in 1997, “Chemport” was introduced as an additional feature to provide a link to full-text journal articles and patents online, and to which a citation analysis feature was added in 2004.1-3 In 2008, the web version of SciFinder was released as an effort to provide users instant access to the database. 1-3 SciFinder provides results on research topics from two main sources, CAplus and MEDLINE. CAplus retrieves results from other CAS databases: structure database (CAS REGISTRY) and chemical reaction database (CASREACT). If a user searches a structure or reaction, there are links to the commercial suppliers (CHEMCATS), regulatory database (CHEMLIST), chemical industry notes (CIN), and Markush (MARPAT). Cited references are retrieved from journals, abstracts, conference proceedings, books, dissertations, and patents. CAS offers the most comprehensive access to chemical information. Its substance database is twice as large as the next biggest file, Reaxys. CAS databases cover patents from 63 patent authorities around the world. SciFinder covers scientific literature published in more than 50 different languages from more than 180 different countries in all the branches of chemistry including biomedical sciences, engineering, materials science, and agricultural sciences. SciFinder has indexed content from more than 50,000 journals (about 10,000 of these are active titles still publishing new content).4 SciFinder has access to >96 M organic and inorganic substances, >66 M DNA and protein sequences, millions of experimental and billions of
predicted properties, commercial availability and pricing of chemicals, and regulatory information. As of April 2015, CAplus contains over 436 million cited references from 1907 to present, some pre-1907 references, and cited references from the mid-1990’s and updated daily. The Registry file is also updated daily with about 15,000 new substances.1-4 MEDLINE contains more than 22 million references and covers 5600 biomedical journals with information from 1946, and is updated daily with 2000–4000 new references.4 Reaxys TM (Reed Elsevier) Reaxys is a web-based database provided by Elsevier, to search the chemical information from literature including journals and patents. Elsevier acquired Crossfire and established it as Reaxys in 2009. Reaxys offers the content merged from three major databases, Beilstein Handbook, Gmelin Handbook, and Patent Chemistry Database, and covers chemical data published since 1771.5-7 The Beilstein Handbook was historically an important source of literature information about organic compounds, structures, reactions, and properties. Originally printed 1881, it contained chemical information dating back to 1771. The Gmelin Handbook was also a historically important source of information covering inorganic and metal–organic literature from 1817 to 1975. The Patent Chemistry Database covers US, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO or WO), and European Patent Office (EPO) patents dating from 1976 to the present. Reaxys can be accessed by subscription via institutional IP authentication as an anonymous user. Although no login is necessary, users may create their own profile and customize their account settings. Elsevier also offers Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry at an additional cost. Reaxys covers chemical research and natural products, whereas Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry covers bioactivity data, drug molecules, and drug targets. While Reaxys states that it retrieves information from over 16,000 periodicals, “deep” chemical indexing is only done for about 400 journal titles and updated biweekly. Reaxys covers approximately 30 million reactions and over 500 million experimentally measured data, and patents from 11 offices worldwide, ranging from historical reactions and related data (1803–1980) to in-depth coverage for reactions and data from 1976– present.7 Web of Science™ (Thomson Reuters)
Web of Science is a database (formerly known as Web of Knowledge) provided by the Thomson Reuters. The WoS Core Collection comprises three subject index categories: Science Citation Index (1900-), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-). It also includes the Conference Proceedings Citation Indexes (1990-) and the Book Citation Index (2005-).8 Each citation index covers the most important or “core literature.” Science Citation Index indexes8,500 of the world’s leading journals across 150 disciplines, from 1900–present.9-11 Virtually all of the journals are peer-reviewed and many are indexed “cover-tocover.” Since 1985, book reviews are only included if they are published in Science, Nature, or The Scientist. Access to the literature indexed depends on a given institution’s subscription. For searching for chemical literature (structure/reaction) in WoS, a separate subscription to the indexes “Current Chemical Reactions (CCR)” and “Index Chemicus (IC)” is required to view structures and reaction diagrams, which will be reviewed later in this article. The strengths are in the sciences and social sciences with a drawback in structure searching. The purchase of the additional two chemical indexes should be carefully considered, especially because there might be some software/hardware compatibility issues with JDraw.
References: 1. https://www.cas.org/about-cas/cas-history (accessed June 2015). 2. https://www.cas.org/about-cas/SciFinder (accessed June 2015).
3. Powell, E. C. A history of Chemical Abstracts Service, 1907-1998. Sci. Technol. Libr. 2000, 18, 93. 4. NIH, U.S. National Library of Medicine, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/medline.html (accessed June 2015). 5. Silhanek, J. Comparisons of the most Important Chemistry Databases - SciFinder Program and Reaxys Database System, Chem. Listy 2014, 108, 81-106. 6. https://www.lib.utexas.edu/chem/info/reaxys.html (accessed Oct 2015). 7. Xiao, N. Electronic Resource Review. Issues in Sci. Technol. Libr. 2009, DOI: 10.5062/F4Q23X5V
8.
http://thomsonreuters.com/content/dam/openweb/documents/pdf/scholarly-scientific-
research/fact-sheet/web-of-science-core-collection.pdf. 9. Jacso, P. As We May Search–Comparison of Major Features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar Citation-based and Citation-enhanced Databases. Curr. Sci. 2005, 89(11), 1537–47. 10. Aghaei, C. A.; Salehi, H.; Yunus, M. M.; Farhadi, H.; Fooladi, M.; Farhadi, M.; Ale Ebrahim, N. A comparison between two main academic literature collections: Web of Science and Scopus databases. Asian Social Science 2013, 9, 18-26. 11. http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/webofscience/ (accessed June 2015).