Everyday Scientist

scifinder scholar 2007: finally online

Here at Stanford Chemistry, we just got access to Scifinder Scholar 2007 … the online version. Cool! Finally, web-access to CAS searching. I decided to try it out and give a little review.

First, I’ll say that I actually like the little stand-alone SFS program: I find it quite user friendly and versatile. But a version accessible via the web is nice (and inevitable). The online version has kept most of the same interface and function, with a web style.

Other databases, notably ISI Web of Science, are really great at finding H-index values or citation trends. But, when I really want to do a lit search on a topic or reaction, SFS is always my first choice (maybe after just typing it into Google). CAS has a nice Flash demonstration and screen shots here. Here are some on my own screen shots (click on them for full images).

A fruitless search:

And the result. Or a reaction search:

Another cool new feature in SFS (web or software version), is the “keep me posted” button: You can follow up on searches or results. Currently, I have alerts from ISI sent to my RSS reader; I’ll have to explore this new SFS feature to see if it’s better.

A couple bad things about the new web version of SFS. It can be a little slow loading the Java and Javascript pages. More importantly, it does not include the ever-so-helpful “remove duplicates” feature. (UPDATE.) I hope this latter problem can be corrected, because I hate seeing the same paper listed millions of times!

I think I’ll use SFS web, especially when I’m using a computer that doesn’t have the software installed. Overall rating: super rad cool.