What is SciFinder web version?
What is it?
The
web version of
SciFinder ("SciFinder (web version)") enables access to the databases and
many of the analytical tools provided by
CAS via a Web browser instead of
the locally-installed client,
SciFinder Scholar.
[example result] [
video demo].
SciFinder (web version) searches using text terms plus tools to refine and analyze search results. It is supported for both Mac and Windows users, though structure and reaction searches are presently supported for Windows only (see Limitations, below).
In a nutshell, use
SciFinder (web version) if you want to quickly survey a domain such as e.g., finding commercially-available compounds known to inhibit the activity of a particular protein, starting with an activity or a compound structure.
What's in it?
SciFinder searches the CAS collection of databses, which covers pretty much all primary data and literature scientific databases you've ever heard of, including all major life sciences, patent and chemistry databases. See complete list
here.
What is it for?
The web version of
SciFinder is an ideal tool for finding:
- Compounds
- Chemical reactions
- Gene/RNA/protein sequences
- Patents
This
Flash demo gives a good idea of the search power of
SciFinder (web version).
Unique Characteristics
SciFinder (web version) is a powerful tool, with many features relevant to life scientists:
- Nothing to install, usable from anywhere.
- Full coumpound searching capabilities, including substructure searching.
- Ability to search both published literature and the patent universe simultaneously, while easily distinguishing the results.
- Powerful compound searching tools, complete with the ability to restricts to compounds with known biological effects and commercial vendors.
- Very useful data summarization and subsetting tools.
- Find entries for genes even though those entries do not explicitely state the search term, such as a HUGO gene identifier. This is due to the extensive indexing applied by CAS, whereby SciFinder will return entries because of your gene belongs to a gene family described in those entries.
- Ability to setup alerts based on your search.
How do I get it?
Technical requirements
- Microsoft Internet Explorer, Version 6.0 or higher.
- Mozilla Firefox, Version 2.0 or higher.
- Safari 3.0 and 3.1.
- JavaScriptTM, JavaTM, and cookies must be enabled.
- Java runtime environment (JRE) 6.0 is needed for structure drawing.
Latest requirements.
Because
SciFinder (web version) is a commercial tool funded by the
Swain Library on behalf of the Stanford community, you will need to fill-out a
one-time registration form
before using it.
Once registered, you can use the web version of
SciFinder from anywhere:
Limitations
- Limited number of concurrent users: only a limited number of simultaneous users can use the web version of SciFinder, so please logout when done.
- CAS provides good indexing (addition of metadata that provide superior findability), but when it comes to the plethora of gene and protein identifiers, you are not guaranteed to find everything when querying with such.
-
SciFinder (web version) does not provide set manipulations tools; use the locally-installed version of SciFinder Scholar for such.
- Some limitations exist for Mac users; please consult CAS' FAQs for such.
- If you want to perform more intense data analysis tasks, you should probably use the locally-installed client,
SciFinder Scholar
, which provides additional capabilities and speed as compared with the Web version.
Key references
Need help?
Two options are available, depending on the type of question:
- For immediate answers to simple "point" question (e.g., "does this program run on MS Vista?"), you can contact the Bioresearch Informationist using instant messaging (Stanford affiliate only).
- For more involved questions, is much preferred and more likely to return a usable answer.
Source
Lane Librarian, with information provided by
Grace Baysinger, Head Librarian,
Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library.
get ultra-fast workshop notifications:
http://twitter.com/LANEBIORESEARCH
ypouliot, September 24, 2009