Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship	Winter 1998

DOI:10.5062/F4XS5SD6

URLs in this document have been updated. Links enclosed in {curly brackets} have been changed. If a replacement link was located, the new URL was added and the link is active; if a new site could not be identified, the broken link was removed.

Chemistry Resources on the Internet

Charles F. Huber
Davidson Library
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106

Chemistry, as the American Chemical Society is wont to say, is the central science; central enough that many important resources in chemical information are among the most valuable -- and most costly -- in scientific information. Yet a significant number of resources highly useful to chemists are available free of charge on the Internet. Following are lists of some of the most useful, with commentary where appropriate.

Page 1:[Chemical Data Sources] [Materials Safety Data Sheets] [Chemistry Departments] [Super Sites]
Page 2: [Awards and Prizes] [Professional Societies] [Conferences, Meetings and Symposia]
Page 3: [Commercial Information Providers] [Publishers] [Electronic Journals]
Page 4: [Chemical Suppliers] [Chemical Equipment Suppliers] [Chemical Software Suppliers]

Chemical Data Sources

{CODATA Recommended Values of the Fundamental Physical Constants (1986)}
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/index.html?/codata86.html
This list, provided by the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) gives values for about 100 of the major physical constants.
{SI Units, Fundamental Constants and Conversion Factors}
gopher://wiretap.spies.com:70/00/Library/Document/si.tbl
This list gives the fundamental and derived SI units, a list of the standard unit prefixes (e.g. milli-, kilo-) and selected physical constants and English unit/SI conversion factors.
The Laws List
http://www.alcyone.com/max/physics/laws/index.html
This collection of laws, rules and constants in physics, compiled by Erik Max Francis, includes a number of interest in physical chemistry, e.g. the gas laws, Rydberg formula, etc.
{WebElements }
http://www.webelements.com/
WebElements is a hypertext-linked collection of property data on the first 112 elements including (where available): general, chemical, physical, nuclear, electronic, biological, geological, crystallographic, reduction potential, isotopic abundances, electronic configurations, ionization enthalpy data and additional textual information, especially on the history of the elements.
{Table Of The Nuclides}
http://necs01.dne.bnl.gov/CoN/nuchart1.html
The Table of the Nuclides first presents a map of all known nuclides. Each horizontal row represents one element; colored dots indicate the known isotopes of that element. A vertical column represents the nuclides with same neutron numbers. By clicking on a region of the chart, you may see a more detailed chart section. From the colors on the chart, you can get an idea of the life time of a nuclide. By clicking on a cell, you can get properties of the nuclide or atom.
NIST Online Physical Data
http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/contents.html
This site contains links to the NIST collections of physical data which have so far been made available over the web, plus a catalog of other NIST data collections.
NIST Chemistry Webbook
http://webbook.nist.gov/
The NIST WebBook will provide access to the full array of data compiled and distributed by NIST under the Standard Reference Data Program. The current edition, the Chemistry WebBook, contains, among other data:
(1) Thermodynamic data on an extensive set of organic and small inorganic compounds - Enthalpy of formation, Heat capacity and Entropy for over 5000 compounds.
(2) A large set of ion-energetics data - Ionization potential and Appearance potential for over 14,000 compounds.
(3) IR spectra, mass spectra and heat of reaction data for thousands of compounds.
Data on specific compounds may be located by name, formula or CAS Registry Number.
{ChemFinder WebServer}
http://chemfinder.cambridgesoft.com/
This database, from CambridgeSoft, provides basic physical data and links to websites containing other data for a large number of chemical compounds. It is searchable by name, molecular weight, molecular formula, CAS Registry Number or structure (uploaded in SMILES string format).
{WWW Chemical Structures Database}
http://www2.ccc.uni-erlangen.de/services/webmol.html
The WWW Chemical Structures Database, created by the Computer Chemistry Center at the University of Erlangen, contains more than 2250 automatically collected chemical structures from the Internet, complete with information about the referring HTML pages. It is searchable by name, CAS Registry Number, molecular formula and other data, as well as by structure (uploaded in SMILES string format).
Organic Compounds Database
http://www.colby.edu/chemistry/cmp/cmp.html
This database, compiled at Virginia Tech and made available by Colby College, provides physical data on a large number of organic compounds, including molecular weight, melting point, boiling point, index of refraction and UV absorption peaks. It is searchable by name, molecular formula or by data values for the above properties.
SOLV-DB
http://solvdb.ncms.org/
SOLV-DB is a database of physical, chemical, health and safety, regulatory and environmental fate data on over 100 common organic solvents, provided by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. It is searchable by name, formula, CAS Registry Number, property data values and so forth.
{IUPAC Chemical Nomenclature}
http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/
This site, housed at Queen Mary and Westfield College, contains a number of IUPAC documents on organic and biochemical nomenclature, in many cases including sample structure diagrams.
{Hazardous Chemicals Database }
http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/erd/
This database, created at the University of Akron, will allow the user to retrieve information for any of over 1300 hazardous chemicals based on a keyword search. Potential keywords include names, formula and registry numbers (CAS, DOT, RTECS and EPA).
{ECDIN - Environmental Chemicals Data Information Network}
http://ulisse.etoit.eudra.org/Ecdin/Ecdin.html
ECDIN is a factual databank, created under the Environmental Research Programme of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the Commission of European Communities at the Ispra Establishment. Chemicals are searchable by name, molecular formula or CAS Registry Number. Possible available data include: Identification, Physical-Chemical Properties, Production and Use, Legislation and Rules, Occupational Health and Safety, Toxicity, Concentrations and Fate in the Environment, Detection Methods, Hazards and Emergency. Not all chemicals listed will have data in all fields.
{Thermodex}
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/thermodex/
While this web site does not actually list thermophysical or thermochemical data, it is an extremely useful index to such data available in a host of printed data collections (excluding Beilstein, Landolt-Bornstein, the CRC Handbook and Perry's Handbook), searchable by name of property, class of compound, specific compound or combinations of the above. Thermodex is the creation of the Library of the University of Texas at Austin.

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Materials Safety Data Sheets Sites

Materials Safety Data Sheets contain basic safety information on the storage, handling and use of chemicals. Manufacturers are required to provide them on request for any chemical products they sell. There are a number of Internet sites which provide electronic collections of MSDS's for quick reference.

{MSDS from University of Utah}
http://www.chem.utah.edu/MSDS/msds.html
This site at the University of Utah contains a collection of materials safety data sheets from a variety of sources. Chemicals are listed alphabetically by common or product name. The database is not searchable.
{MSDS from Vermont SIRI}
http://199.233.112.71/msds/
This site from Vermont Safety Resources on the Internet contains a searchable collection of MSDS from a variety of chemical manufacturers. It also includes a large collection of links to other Web MSDS sites. Vermont SIRI also maintains a good collection of links to other health and safety sites on the Vermont SIRI Web Site at http://siri.org. .
MSDS from PTCL in Oxford, U.K.
http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/
This Web site contains an alphabetically grouped collection of MSDS from a variety of sources. The collection is maintained by the Physical and Theoretical Chemsitry Laboratory at the University of Oxford.

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University Chemistry Department WWW sites

{ACS Chemical Sciences Graduate School Finder}
http://pubs.acs.org/books/direct/gsf/index.html
This American Chemical Society site contains detailed information on North American graduate schools, with browsable and searchable lists of chemistry, chemical engineering, biochemistry and related departments.
{The U.S. News and World Report rankings}
http://www4.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/gchem.htm
Contains rankings of graduate chemistry programs in the U.S., last updated for chemistry in 1996.
{Peterson's Guide to Graduate and Professional Study}
http://www.petersons.com/graduate-schools.aspx
This Web site, from the creators of the popular Peterson's college guides, covers graduate programs in the U.S. and Canada.
{Peterson's Guide to Undergraduate Colleges}
http://www.petersons.com/college-search.aspx
Similar information on undergraduate programs in the U.S. and Canada.
{Academic Chemistry Departments in the United States}
http://guides.library.ucsb.edu/chemuniv?hs=a
{Academic Chemistry Departments Outside the United States}
http://guides.library.ucsb.edu/content.php?pid=73894
The sites above contain a comprehensive collection of links to the web sites of academic chemistry departments (and some national laboratories and national academies) from the United States and the rest of the world, respectively. The U.S. list is grouped both alphabetically and by state, while the world list is grouped by country. North American universities with a listing in the ACS Graduate School Finder also have a direct link to their listing in that web source.

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Super Sites

These are major collections of World Wide Web information in chemistry. Some of the sources they link to may duplicate each other or this list, but you will also find unique resources.

{Analytical Chemistry Springboard from Umeå University}
http://www.anachem.umu.se/jumpstation.htm
This is an excellent collection of Internet resources dealing specifically with analytical chemistry.
{Australian Chemistry Network -- OzChemNet}
http://apamac.ch.adfa.oz.au/ozchemnet/
{Biochemistry: WWW Virtual Library at Harvard}
http://mcb.harvard.edu/BioLinks.html
This biochemistry resource collection is part of the excellent "WWW Virtual Library" alliance of sites.
{Biomolecular & Biosequence Databases (Harvard)}
http://mcb.harvard.edu/gilbert/
On the same server as the above, this is one of the best lists of the ever-growing libraries of biosequence information available on the Web.
{ChemCenter}
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/home.html
This is a pooling of Web resources from the American Chemical Society and Chemical Abstracts Service, including STNEasy, the ACS Graduate School Finder, Chemcyclopedia and more. It will eventually feature unique resources as well.
{ChemDex from the University of Sheffield}
http://www.chemdex.org/
ChemDex is one of the premier collections of chemistry sites on the Web, extremely comprehensive and well organized. See also ChemWeb below.
Chemie.de
http://www.chemie.de/
An excellent recently developed site with a huge collection of links organized by subject class (unfortunately, the links are identified by the page title, which isn't always very descriptive), as well as a nice collection of online tools like a molecular mass calculator, chemical software links, and job and conference listings.
ChemInfo from Indiana University: CIS-IU
http://www.indiana.edu:80/~cheminfo/
This site, created by Gary Wiggins, chemistry librarian at Indiana University, is excellent, especially for chemical information instruction resources.
Chemistry : The World-Wide Web Virtual Library from UCLA
http://www.chem.ucla.edu/chempointers.html
Another WWW Virtual Library site.
{Chemistry : Yahoo}
http://dir.yahoo.com/science/chemistry/
Yahoo's hierarchical collection of chemistry resources is extremely large, if not very selective or well-maintained.
{Chemistry Resources on the Internet from RPI}
http://www.chem.rpi.edu/icr/chemres.html
An extensive, well-organized and searchable collection of Net resources. [Ed. note: "...Since instruction in chemical information is no longer offered regularly at Rensselaer, the resources required for timely updates of this site cannot be justified. -- from the web site]
{ChemWeb.com}
http://www.chemweb.com/
This site is an "Internet club for chemists", containing chat rooms, forums, a "shopping mall" with links to suppliers, a "library" with full-text journals from various publishers and databases from MDL Information Systems, Inc., job postings, its own online magazine for chemists (The Alchemist) and other services. ChemWeb now includes ChemDex Plus, a searchable version of the excellent Sheffield ChemDex site. Members must register, but membership is free.
{Crystallography: The World Wide Web Virtual Library from University of Geneva, Switzerland}
http://www.unige.ch/crystal/w3vlc/crystal.index.html
Another good WWW Virtual Library site.
{EInet: Chemistry}
https://www.einet.net/dir14676/Chemistry.htm
Another hierarchically organized collection; like Yahoo, it is large but not well maintained.
{German Chemical Resources: WWW Virtual Library from Karlsruhe}
http://www.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/Outerspace/VirtualLibrary/54.en.html
As the name implies, this site focuses on Internet chemical resources based in Germany. Available in both German and English versions.
{The Homepage for Chemists}
http://www.chemie.de/?language=e
A large collection of links to Web chemistry resources, well-classified and updated. Also available in a German language version.
{INFOMINE Physical Sciences from UC-Riverside}
http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?physci
Not one of the largest physical science sites, but notable for its use of assigned subject headings and keywords for better searching of the resource database.
{Latinamerican Chemistry Web (English version)
http://latina.chem.cinvestav.mx/RLQ/welcome_eng.html
This site is sponsored by the Organization of American States and hosted by CINVESTAV in Mexico. It is especially good for addresses and contacts for Latin American universities and has a host of useful links. It is also available in a Spanish language version.
{Magellan: The McKinley Internet Directory}
http://magellan.excite.com/
This directory of Internet resources in many fields is searchable and browsable by subject and rates its entries for completeness, ease of use, etc. Does not contain a huge number of links under Chemistry.
{NIST Virtual Library Chemistry Subject Guide}
http://nvl.nist.gov/nvl2.cfm?dynamic=res_subj&subjectid=7
This guide to chemistry Web resources from the National Institute of Standards and Technology is not huge, but does contain a few unique links.
{Rolf Claessen's Chemistry Index}
http://www.claessen.net/chemistry/
This is a very comprehensive, frequently updated collection of links covering all areas of chemistry.
{SciQuest}
http://www.sciquest.com/
SciQuest provides a searchable and browsable collection of links to a vast number of chemical and equipment suppliers. Users may enter as guests, or register as members free of charge.
{Thermodynamic Data and Property Calculation Sites on the Web}
http://tigger.uic.edu/~mansoori/Thermodynamic.Data.and.Property_html
An extensive collection of thermodynamic data Web sites from the Thermodynamics Research Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
{WebChemistry from La Trobe Univ.}, Melbourne, Australia.
http://www.liv.ac.uk/Chemistry/Links/ parent site
http://www-chem.harvard.edu/webchemistry/webchem.html U. S. mirror site
http://www.ch.qub.ac.uk/webchemistry/webchem.html U. K. mirror site
A large, well-organized collection; unfortunately it apparently hasn't been updated since October, 1996.
Wendy Warr & Co.
http://www.warr.com/
This web site for the consulting firm operated by renowned chemical information specialist Wendy Warr includes links to excellent collections of information on current meetings, combinatorial chemistry and chemical structure information on the Web.

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