Where is development of application program for database searching heading? Demonstration of the SciFinder® program for Chemical Abstracts searching.

From the very beginning of electronic database era the dilemma existed as to aim database searching tools at trained professional searcher or to make usage of database as easy as possible. The term “user-friendly” became very popular but it should be also stressed that to gain the maximum information from the real content of given database, the access using professional language like Messenger® of STN International is the best solution. But it is definitely not “user-friendly” approach. It is necessary to learn such professional language and to keep good command of it. The solution of this problem is, of course, strongly influenced by the stage of development of information technology. Chemical Abstracts Service as the producer of one of the larges scientific secondary database, introduced some time ago so called desktop research tool SciFinder®, which is very probably the most advanced instrument for the exploitation of scientific databases like Chemical Abstracts aimed at individual user. The key objective when designing this research tool has been an intuitive approach without special training by end user and despite of it to obtain with high probability the same search results as professional searcher.

Author information:

After graduation from the Prague Institute of Chemical Technology he obtained his PhD in organic technology from the same institution in 1968. Starting carrier as organic chemist mostly in areas of pesticides and organic sulphur compounds chemistry he has been steadily engaged in the fields of chemical information and particularly in its electronic forms. He wrote a couple of teaching text on this subject and he is lecturing courses on Chemical Informatics on the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague. He has about 70 papers, patents and review papers in local and international journals and gave a couple of plenary lectures on Online Meeting in London (1997, 1999) as well as on the larges chemical congress Achema in Frankfurt am Main on the subject of management of chemical information and searching problems. He is also author of a couple of projects on promotion of widespread access to the most important chemical databases for all chemical or natural science faculties in the Czech Republic.