A comparison of searching the Beilstein database on different online vendors

I am honoured to have been invited to speak at the Montreux 1990 International Chemical Information Conference. My co-author, Mary Ann Palma, and I are pleased to share with you some of the results of our evaluation of the various online loadings of the Beilstein File. Our research has led to two other presentations besides this one: a poster presentation at the Molecular Design Inc. (MDL) Software Users’ Group Meeting, May 3,1990 (‘Beilstein: the Other Chemical Reactions Database’) and a paper, ‘Searching the Beilstein Database Online: A Comparison of Systems’, which will appear in the December 1990 Database magazine. We thank the editor of Database, Ms. Paula Hane, for commissioning that article and prodding us down the path to an evaluation of the online versions of Beilstein.