Previous Contents Next Issues in Science and Technology
Librarianship Winter 2011 DOI: 10.5062/F4QJ7F79   Tips from the
Experts  Searching Inorganic Substances in SciFinder  A. Ben
Wagner Science & Engineering Library University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York  Copyright 2011, A. Ben Wagner. Used with
permission.   The primary goal of this article is to assist
researchers and librarians to accurately and completely search
Chemical Abstracts Service's (CAS) SciFinder web-based system
for inorganic substances, excepting coordination compounds. CAS
indexing policies and conventions in handling the wide variety
of inorganic materials are described in detail. Detailed search
strategies for retrieving salts, oxides, sulfides, minerals,
alloys, metal clusters, tabular inorganics, indeterminate
derivatives, and unknown/variable compositions are reviewed.
Although this article is of primary value for SciFinder
researchers, the analysis of how CAS handles inorganics will be
of use to searchers regardless of the platform u