Research Guides: CHEM 101: Orientation to Chemistry: Quick Start

Databases for Chemistry

Recommended Chemistry Databases

The databases below are databases specific to the field of chemistry. They feature resources and have special tools and features specific to finding chemistry research.

Reaxys This link opens in a new window
Reaxys is a powerful data-searching tool designed to retrieve chemical reactions, substance data and other related information. It can be searched in a number of ways, including chemical structure, formula, and physical property parameters.
ACS (American Chemical Society) Web Editions This link opens in a new window
An authoritative provider of chemistry-related information, ACS publishes 50 peer-reviewed journals across a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. The ACS eBooks, which consist of the Advances in Chemistry series and the ACS Symposium Series, now include more than 1,400 eBooks developed from ACS-sponsored symposia and written by chemistry's brightest minds. Approximately 30 new ACS eBooks are published each year.

General Science Databases

The databases below are some of the general science databases that may be helpful when researching broad chemistry topics or topics that are interdisciplinary within other science fields.

Science Direct This link opens in a new window
Citations, abstracts and some full-text scholarly articles covering a wide range of science and health sciences topics. Quick search tutorial
Science This link opens in a new window
Understand context for hundreds of science topics through overviews, journals, news, interactive experiments, and more. Contains millions of full-text articles that include national and global publications as well as 200+ experiments, projects, and top reference content.
General Science Full-Text This link opens in a new window
Abstracts and articles from leading professional journals and popular science magazines.

Physics Databases

The database below is mainly for physics but it may be helpful when researching chemistry topics.

PROLA (Physical Review Online Archive, by the American Physical Society) This link opens in a new window
Articles from Physical Review Letters, Physical Review, and Reviews of Modern Physics

Databases for Popular Magazine or Newspapers

Sometimes you need to learn more about your research topic or find a popular source (like a magazine or newspaper article) that references a scientific or peer-reviewed journal. The databases below provide some resources for finding popular newspapers or magazines articles that discuss and reference scientific research:

New York Times This link opens in a new window
Students, faculty and staff now have access to the full content of the NYT.com and NYT mobile apps. Activate your free pass and create an account by going to NYT Edupass . You must use your FHSU e-mail address to create an account.
***Accounts are active for 364 days. If your account has expired use the same NYT Edupass link and log-in at that page to reactivate your account.***
General Science Full-Text This link opens in a new window
Abstracts and articles from leading professional journals and popular science magazines.

Databases for Background Research

Sometimes you need to learn more about your research topic. The databases below will provide some background information from scholarly encyclopedias:

Credo Reference E-Book Collection This link opens in a new window
Reference e-books on a wide range of topics. Sources include dictionaries, encyclopedias, key concepts, key thinkers, handbooks, atlases, and more. Search by keyword or browse titles by topic.
Britannica Academic This link opens in a new window
Britannica Academic contains both the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, as well as magazine and journal articles written by Pulitzer Prize winners and leading experts, a world atlas, country data, and timelines.

Biochemistry Databases

The databases below are some of the nursing and health science databases that may be helpful when researching biochemistry and pre-med topics.

PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 24 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

If you have searched PubMed and located a citation of interest, check for full-text icons in the upper right corner of the display above the citation. Some full text articles may be free, for example those archived in the PubMed Central® (PMC) database.
Nursing & Allied Health Database (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Articles from over 700 Nursing & Allied Health journals, plus over 12,000 full-text dissertations, covering research in nursing and related fields.
Health Source: Nursing & Academic Edition This link opens in a new window
This database provides nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines.

Drawing Chemical Structures

MarvinSketch Software
Marvin suite is a chemically intelligent desktop toolkit built to help you draw, edit, publish, render, import and export your chemical structures and as well as allowing you to convert between various chemical and graphical file formats. It is free for individual, academic and non-commercial use.
ChemSketch
With ChemSketch you can draw chemical structures, including organics, organometallics, polymers, and Markush structure; calculate molecular properties (molecular weight, density, molar refractivity, and more); and clean up your structure and view it in 2D and 3D. It also includes features such as calculation of molecular properties (e.g., molecular weight, density, molar refractivity etc.), 2D and 3D structure cleaning and viewing, functionality for naming structures (fewer than 50 atoms and 3 rings), and prediction of logP. (Download if you have a PC)

Finding E-books and E-book Chapters

Use the links below to search for e-books and e-book chapters relating to topics in chemistry.

ProQuest Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Ebook Central is a highly interactive ebook database that covers all academic subject areas. The collection currently includes more than 186,000 titles from more than 280 of the world's leading academic, STM, and professional publishers. Install Adobe Digital Editions to download and read ebooks offline on your laptop or on your iOS or Android device. You will also need to create a free Adobe ID account to read the book.
*Includes Academic Complete
Science Direct This link opens in a new window
Citations, abstracts and some full-text scholarly articles covering a wide range of science and health sciences topics. Quick search tutorial
EBSCOhost eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
eBooks on a range of topics.

Finding Physical Books in the Catalog and on the Shelves

To search for a physical book in the library catalog, change the "search scope" to select "books and more" then search using keywords and use the sidebar filter to "Show Only > Available in the Library" and "Resource Type > Books".

When you find a book you're interested in, you can either sign into the catalog with your TigerNetID to place a hold and have the book ready for you to pick up at the Learning Commons Desk, or you can use the call number listed in the catalog to go find the book on the shelves.

How to Read a Library of Congress Call Number
Brief explanation of call numbers by Angelo State University.

If you would like to browse for books, look in the QD call number areas in the General Collection on the 2nd floor:

Call Number Range	Chemistry Topic
QD 1-23.3	General Chemistry
QD 23.3-26.5	Alchemy
QD 71-142	Analytical Chemistry
QD 146-197	Inorganic Chemistry
QD 241-414	Organic Chemistry
QD 415-436	Biochemistry
QD 450-731	Physical & Theoretical Chemistry
QD 900-999	Crystallography

Finding Chemistry Journals

Finding Electronic Access to Chemistry Journals

Use the links below to search for electronic scholarly journals in the field of chemistry.

E-Journals at Forsyth Library
Search by journal title (or broad discipline keywords such as "biochemistry") to find out the journals you can access electronically through Forsyth Library. Click on "online access" to view the journal in one of the library's database(s) and see the date ranges of issues available.
Open Access Chemistry Journals
Browse chemistry subject journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals by using the sidebar filter "Subjects > Science > Chemistry"

Journals outside of ACS and Reaxys

While most chemistry journals at Forsyth Library can be found using the ACS or Reaxys database, Forsyth Library has access to other chemistry journals that may also be worth considering. A search in the library catalog will also open up options such as these. A few of these titles include:

Chemical Society Reviews
The Royal Society of Chemistry's high impact reviews from across the chemical sciences.
Angewandte Chemie
A weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Wiley-VCH on behalf of the German Chemical Society.
Geochemical Transactions
Geochemical Transactions publishes high-quality research in all areas of chemistry as it relates to materials and processes occurring in terrestrial and extraterrestrial systems.
Chemistry and Industry
Presents the full text of "Chemistry & Industry," published semimonthly by the Society of Chemical Industry located in London, England.
Chemistry Journals in Science Direct
Browse the 20-30 chemistry journals that are housed in the Science Direct database. You can also do keyword or title searches from the Science Direct interface to include these in your search results.

Finding Chemistry Journals in Print

Print journals (or periodicals) are located on the Lower Level of Forsyth Library in the compact shelving. Search by journal title in the library catalog and use the sidebar filter to "Show Only > Available in the Library" and "Resource Type > Journals". For best results, put the journal title in quotation marks.

When you find a journal you're interested in, click the title to view the available format(s), location(s), years/issues available, and call number. Use hte location and call number listed in the catalog to go find the bound periodical on the shelves. Several journals are also available using microfilm, which require you to use the microfilm machines to view the contents.

Some of the most requested print journals in chemistry are listed below:

Journal Title	Call Number
American Chemical Society JI	QD 1 .A5
Angewandte Chemie	QD 1 .A67
Chemical Society Reviews	QD 1 .C624
Helvetica Chimica Acta	QD 1 .C624
JI of Physical Chemistry	QD 1 .J85
JI of Physical Chemistry A	QD 1 .J851
JI of Physical Chemistry B	QD 1 .J852
JI of Chemical Education	QD 1 .J93
Analytical Letters	QD 71 .A53
European JI of Inorganic Chemistry	QD 146 .E97
JI of Organic Chemistry	QD 241 . J6
JI of Chromatographic Science	QD 271 .J66
JI of Hetrocyclic Chemistry	QD 400 .J6
JI of Chemical Thermodynamics	QD 501 .J78

Find an Article from an ACS Citation

Search: Article Title

Copy and paste the article title into the library catalog (be careful, hyphens, quotations, superscripts can throw off the search)
Click on the article title to select a database under the "View It" section or click the "Full Text Available" link directly from the results page

Search: Journal, Year, Volume, and Issue

ACS citations don't always list the article title, so you may need to search by the journal, the year published, and the volume/issue number.

Copy and paste the journal title into the library catalog
ACS citations use CASSI abbreviations of journal titles, so if the library catalog doesn't bring up any results, use the CASSI search tool or Google to identify the full name of the journal
HINT: Use the sidebar filter to limit results to "Resource Type > Journal"
Click on the journal title to select a database under the "View It" section or click the "Online Access" link directly from the results page
Navigate to the year listed in the citation (HINT: in bold)
Navigate to the volume number and issue number listed in the citation
Do a "CTRL + F" to find the author's last name or a word from the title (if provided)

Presentation Slides

9/30 Presentation Slides
Presentation slides cover science news process and the activity recap of tracing scholarly sources from a popular source (magazine, newspaper, wikipedia)
10/7 Presentation Slides

Poll Everywhere: Live Responses

In-Class Responses

Poll Everywhere

Science Literacy Activities

Tracing Popular to Scholarly Sources Activity

Primary and Secondary Research Activity

Primary v. Secondary Research

Citation Activity

ACS Citations (short)

Library Instruction Feedback Form

ReactionFlash App

Flashcards

ReactionFlash App
Download a free app that is designed like a set of flash cards. Each card shows a reaction, its mechanism, examples from peer-reviewed literature and gives access to the latest publications in Reaxys. Test your knowledge with the in-app quiz.