Guides and databases: Chemistry: Databases and literature searching

Key databases for Chemistry

ACS Style Guide
The ACS Style is a set of standards for writing documents relating to chemistry, including a standard method of citation in academic publications, developed by the American Chemical Society (ACS)
British Association for the Advancement of Science (Collections on the History of Science: 1830-1970): BAAS
The Archive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) and connected collections from UK universities covers astronomy, biology, technology, industrial design, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, agriculture, meteorology, physics, history of science and STEM, and government grants for scientific research. It contains administrative records, correspondence, illustrations, manuscripts, photographs, prototypes, clippings, personal papers, gray literature—all presented as fully searchable digital images.
Cambridge Companions Online
A collection of ebooks from Cambridge University Press. Accessibility statement for Cambridge Core.
Chemical Abstracts
Access for UCL students and staff only. On first use, go to the Scifinder registration page to create a personal password. Access to the databases produced by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). Covers documents (journals, proceedings, patents, technical reports and books), substances and reactions.
Faculti Sciences collection
Faculti videos covering both formal and natural sciences offering academic and professional research insights.
Google Scholar
UCL has activated findit@UCL links in Google Scholar. If you are using a UCL computer, you should see these links automatically. If you are outside the UCL network and want to display findit@UCL links, you will need to set UCL in 'Library Links' within the Settings menu.
JoVE Unlimited
UCL users have access to all JoVE content, including over 15,000 videos in 13 sections of the JoVE Video Journal. New subject series and collections are added to the JoVE Science Education Library several times a year.
PubMed
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to PubMed. Please view the instructions on how to see findit@UCL links in PubMed when offsite. PubMed is an index of biomedical literature, including all data from the Medline database from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the US National Library of Medicine (NLM).
Reaxys
This database integrates: Reaxys, Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry, Reaxys Predictive Retrosynthesis, Reaxys Commercial Substances, PubChem, eMolecules, LabNetwork and Sigma-Aldrich.
Science Database (ProQuest)
Focusing on both the applied and general sciences and with coverage dating back to 1986, ProQuest Science Journals features over 1,145 titleswith more than 965 available in full text.
Science of Synthesis
Science of Synthesis is a reference work for preparative methods in synthetic chemistry. Its product-based classification system enables chemists to easily find a solution to their synthetic problems.
SciFinder-n
Access for UCL students and staff only. On first use, go to the Scifinder registration page to create a personal password.
SCOPUS
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to Scopus. Multi-disciplinary database containing references to journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, book series and web resources. Please use IE 8 or higher, Google Chrome or Firefox browsers.
Web of Science
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to Web of Science. Defaults to a ‘Core Collection’ search, covering the main Web of Science journals database; select 'All Databases' option from the drop down menu to cross-search all of UCL's subscribed Web of Science products, including Biosis, MEDLINE etc.

FindIt@UCL

Where you see the Findit@UCL icon, click on it to link to the full text.

Sometimes you will see a link to the publisher's site. Unless the article is open access, you might find that you can't reach the full text.

Clicking on the Findit@UCL link instead will link you to the full text via UCL's subscription access, if available.

Library Databases

Library databases A-Z
Browse or search our databases by title, or use the Subject drop down box at the top to narrow down to databases in your subject area.

What is a database?

Search strategies for literature searching

This online tutorial uses a series of videos and activities to demonstrate some top tips for enhancing your searching skills. The extract below looks at how you decide what terms to use.

Try the full tutorial.

Guide to searching for information

This guide will help you start looking for research for assignments, literature reviews and research.