IRIS is the Rutgers University Libraries' (RUL) online catalog to all holdings throughout the system. Searching by author, title, subject, keyword, call number, etc. or any combination of these elements is possible on IRIS. The catalog is used to search for books and journals (as well as other formats such as videos, maps etc.). It is not used to search for an article. You must search for the journal the article is in, not the article itself.

Notes for searching a book on IRIS

• Use any words of which you are certain and leave the default in place (words anywhere).

• Journal title abbreviations are not searchable. For example, Proc. R. Soc. London will not retrieve any records. Search using Proceedings of the Royal Society .... It is not necessary to complete the entire journal title, but it is necessary that the words entered are in un-abbreviated form. CASSI, the Chemical Abstracts list of chemistry titles explains what each abbreviated title is in its full form. CASSI can be found at REF QD1.A52 in Dana Library's Reference Area.
• Ensure that you include all prepositions and articles (except for the initial The or A) in the entered portion of the title. E.g. Journal of the American Chemical Society. This is also important when you go to find it on the shelves.
• Journal titles change constantly. Some journal titles have changed (or have been modified by splitting) several times since their first volume. Look at the IRIS record carefully to see if the title is continued by or continues another title, e.g., Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie. This is important for two reasons:
  1. the user might incorrectly think a title is not available in Dana and then request an intralibrary loan which will be refused, and
  2. the titles are shelved alphabetically and will move its place in the library according to the new title.
• Use the Full A-Z list to find an online journal at RUL

Material in other RUL libraries
For books or articles in other Rutgers University Libraries, go to:
How Do I... ...request materials from another RU library?

Material that isn't held by Rutgers University Libraries - Interlibrary loan
How Do I... ...order an interlibrary loan?

Academic Search Premier
General Science Full Text
Applied Science and Technology Full Text
These are three separate multidisciplinary indexes in the sciences. The chemistry coverage is excellent, included are all of the American Chemical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry journals. Note that some of the articles have fulltext provided in the database. If the fulltext is not provided, use the 'search for article' linker to determine if fulltext is available at RUL.

SciFinder Scholar - Chemical Abstracts Online
SciFinder Scholar is the electronic version of the print publication "Chemical Abstracts". Like "Chemical Abstracts", SciFinder Scholar comprehensively covers the world-wide literature of chemistry including print journal articles, online publications, patents, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations, technical reports, government documents, etc. SciFinder is the single most important resource in chemistry research.

Types of Searches You Can Run On SciFinder Scholar:

• Chemical Substance - search by structure, by chemical identifier, by chemical formula
• Research Topic - search using key words or natural language
• Author name
• Document identifier - chemical abstracts number, patent number, codoc number
• Company name/organization - e.g. Rutgers University, Newark
• Browse Tables of Contents

Lists over 17,000,000 organic and inorganic substances, and over 11,000,000 bio-sequences for a total of 28,000,000+ chemical substance registrations, for the period 1957 to the present.

Provides access to over 3.8 million single- and multi-step chemical reactions for the period 1985+ for journal articles and 1991+ for patents. Contains over 2.5 million patent records.

Monitors over 8,000 journals world-wide, including a core of some 1500 titles for which cover-to- cover treatment is routinely provided; plus patents from 29 national patent offices, EPO, and WIPO; conference proceedings; technical reports; books; dissertations; reviews, etc.

If you would like to be able to access SciFinder Scholar from your Rutgers office or lab computer, you must first install the necessary client software. Information for this is available on a separate Requirements & Installation Instructions page.

Please note the computer specifications required to run this product and make sure your workstation meets or exceeds those operational requirements.

Users of SciFinder Scholar at Rutgers need to keep in mind that we currently have a limit of five simultaneous users for all of the New Brunswick campuses, and only one user each at the Newark and Camden campuses. Therefore, during heavy use periods, you may get the equivalent of a busy signal when you try to enter. If that happens, just keep trying. Also remember that the system is currently set to disconnect a workstation that is idle for more than 10 minutes (i.e., no commands entered into the system for 10 minutes).

Web of Science
The Web of Science (WOS) is the electronic version of the citation indices. The Science Citation Index is no longer available in print form at Dana Library. WOS covers the exact same material as the print. WOS indexes the highest number of chemistry journals, aside from Chemical Abstracts. WOS is not a difficult database, but it is complicated. It takes several searches to get an understanding of its strengths. WOS is a bibliographic database, this means that it retrieves references/abstracts only. There is no full-text component, although there is linking to full-text.

• WOS can be used to perform a literature search on a given author or topic/subject/compound. This is NOT the primary function of a citation index, but it can be used this way. If WOS is used for a literature search it will only retrieve material dating from 1994.
• The primary function of WOS is to conduct searches on a topic or by author and also to find articles which cite these works or which use related.
• WOS can also be used to retrieve the tables of contents of the journals indexed in the database. Using the tables of contents is a current awareness tool. This allows you to browse the recent material in the journal literature without coming to the library or subscribing to the journal.

Beilstein
Beilstein is a bibliographic/full-text database. It provides references to specific research on organic compounds. Its purpose is to provide a comprehensive foundation of information on organic compounds. It will provide references to the original journal articles where preparation, reaction, property and other data sources. It is time tested material. It is not used to find the most recent articles on a given compound, rather to find the articles needed to proceed with research on any organic compound. It is an excellent source to use in order to prevent 're-inventing the wheel'. RULs version of Beilstein does not provide access to Gmellin (inorganic and organometallic) handbooks. Searches can be executed by:

• Structure/sub-structure
• Compound name
• Name fragments
• Chemical formulae etc.

There are other indices available that have some secondary importance to Chemistry. I have listed a few of them, note that this is not a complete list. If you have a chemistry-related search check with the Reference Desk or read the list of indices available. Most of these indices are bibliographic, i.e., references only.

Digital Dissertations
This provides access to most North American doctoral dissertations, with some European universities being added recently. Dissertations are an excellent source of information and further references. RUL interlibrary loan will borrow these dissertations from the respective libraries; however they can take several weeks to arrive.

Medline
Medline is a good database for chemical information relating to medical science, including pharmacology, biochemical and biotechnology. It is one of the few indices that allows searching by CAS registry number. The coverage is excellent and includes material from the mid-60s onward.

CAB Abstracts
Includes references to all life science material.

INSPEC
Mainly physics, electronics and computer science material, but includes some physical chemistry. Excellent for apparatus and electronic device information.

Packages (Factiva, JSTOR, ScienceDirect, MUSE, ACS)
All package deals provide access to numerous electronic journals. All of these journals are indexed in IRIS, so it is no longer necessary to know which title is in which package. When you search a title on IRIS, look for the term 'online' to retrieve the electronic version. You can also retrieve the regular journal record and look in the record for the URL link. Click on the link and you are connected to the specific title. RUL's copyright license allows you to print any article for your own use. These journals can be accessed from remote locations provided you login first so that your Rutgers' status will be recognized by the publisher/vendor. More information is available at: How Do I... ...connect from off-campus?
[http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/ how_do_i/connect_from_home.shtml]

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY JAN 1989 1 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 7
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY ONLINE 1 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 
	SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 1 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE HEALTH ASSOCIATION 3 

Entry #3 is the electronic version of the journal. As mentioned above, if you choose #2, you will still be able to connect to the electronic journal. Note the highlighted area, just link from the Web address in the catalog record next to Electronic access.

Example:

 Corporate author: American Chemical Society.
     	    Title: Journal of the American Chemical Society. 
 Publication info: [Washington, etc., American Chemical 
		   Society] 1879-
	     ISSN: 0002-7863
	  Subject: Chemistry--Periodicals
	 Absorbed: Journal of analytic and applied 
		   chemistry July 1893
       	 Absorbed: American chemical journal 
		   (ISSN: 0096-4085) Jan. 1914 
      Library has: CAMDN PER SHELVED BY TITLE v.37-123 
		   1915-2001
Electronic access: Online version: 
		http://pubs.acs.org/journals/jacsat/index.html 
		Access from campus or login via Rutgers account. 

ANNEX
Location: PER -- Shelved by title
Holdings: v.1 (1879) - v.76 (1954)
CHEMISTRY
Location: PER -- Shelved by title -- Note:Print copy cancelled 
after v.123 (2001); available online via hotlink shown above.
Holdings: v.77 (1955) - v.123 (2001)
DANA
Location: FLMPER -- Shelved by title
Holdings: v.117 - v.123
DANA
Location: PER -- Shelved by title -- Note:Cancelled after v.123 
2001
Holdings: v.1 (1879) - v.123 (2001)

Factiva
Factiva is primarily a business database. It includes the full-text to over 6000 newspapers, both national and foreign papers. It can be used for chemical marketing information.

The two following sites will provide links to the most relevant chemistry sources on the Web:

chemistry.org from the American Chemical Society

[http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/home.html]

CHEMINFO: Chemical Information Sources

[http://www.indiana.edu/~cheminfo/]

Not all journal articles are created equal. Consider the source, i.e., evaluate the journal in which your article is found. Get some background on the author(s), ask yourself if the author(s) are doing legitimate research, and are they doing it for a legitimate institution. The references you retrieve from the indexes should lead you to reputable journals, scientifically relevant, and from an appropriate time period. This is to say, articles from popular magazines may not have the in-depth coverage of scientific material, and would be unacceptable for an academic assignment if that were all you included in your references. Articles from general or popular magazines are good starting points, but should be reinforced by using scholarly literature. Exercise judgment when choosing material for research assignments. Some of the elements to keep in mind when choosing references are:

• journal reputation
• author(s) background in that area of research
• quality of the research detailed in the article
• year of publication
• material covered in the article, type of article (literature review, research article, policy article)
• comprehension of the material covered. It is important that you understand the material. Do not try to present or interpret material that you did not understand. Either ask for help, or choose another article.
• the index from which you retrieved the article. Usually reputable indexes retrieve reputable articles.

N.B. All these criteria should be used in evaluating all sources especially web-created material. When using material that exists only on the web, be sure the content is accurate and timely.

The library has material to help you prepare your research. There are also style manuals, citation guides as well as publications used for research presentation, technical writing and related material. You can find this material on IRIS, or try the Electronic Reference Sources: Citation Manuals.

Standard guides are kept on the Ready Reference shelf, check with the reference librarians at Dana Library.