Please Note: SciFinder is now available directly on the web without downloading software to your machine. Use SciFinder User Registration to register (using your UK email address only) for direct access. Once you are registered, you can access SciFinder using the following link:

Direct to SciFinder Website

Chemical Abstracts (CA) includes extensive coverage of general chemistry and chemistry-related disciplines such as biochemistry, materials science, physical chemistry, pharmacy and chemical engineering. It indexes over 8,000 journals, patents worldwide, technical reports, conference proceedings, books, and dissertations, and contains over 16 million abstracts. In addition, it provides compound identification. The registry file contains more than 22 million substance records, including more than 16 million organic compounds and 3 million biosequences. In an average working day, CAS adds approximately 2,500 document records and 11,000 substance registrations.

You can still use the software package downloaded from SciFinder Scholar, but direct access is now available via the web; see above.

Machines in the following libraries have SciFinder Scholar installed: Science, Medical Center Library, and Shaver Engineering. In addition, all of the Student Computing Labs provide SciFinder Scholar.

SciFinder contains abstracts and structures. See the SciFinder Scholar website for additional information.

Please note: SciFinder Scholar is limited to seven simultaneous users. If you get a message that the system is busy, it probably means that others are using the system. SciFinder is set to time out after 20 minutes of inactivity, so be sure to save your information as you work. Please remember to also do these on Beilstein (Crossfire Commander). The two databases cover different time periods and are complementary. Neither one alone provides a complete chemical search.

One may search by:

• Chemical Substance or Reaction: Explore chemical substances by chemical name, chemical structure, formulas, or CAS Registry Numbers.
• Research Topic
• Author Name
• Specific Reference: Find literature by CA abstract number or patent number.

With SciFinder Scholar, you can also:

• Get reactions, starting from structures of interest
• Find specific CA journal or patent abstracts by entering the abstract or patent numbers
• Refine your answer set by author name, document type, or publication year

Contact Jan Carver with any questions or problems.

To download the SciFinder Scholar software package:
Log-on to http://download.uky.edu/ using your U-Connect log-in. Search for SciFinder. Download the appropriate SciFinder Scholar 2007 zip file for your computer platform. The zip file contains the application, the site.prf file, the Getting Started Guide and a readme file with instructions for installing SciFinder Scholar.

Off-Campus Use
SciFinder Scholar will work off-campus for UK Faculty who install the University of Kentucky's VPN client and authenticate using the UK VPN server.

• How to install and use VPN on Windows

• How to install and use VPN on Mac OS X