Skip to Main Content
The U.S. Naval Academy Nimitz Library

Chemistry

This guide provides a select list of resources supporting research in chemistry and related areas.

Accessing SciFinder Scholar

Use of SciFinder Scholar is limited to Midshipmen, Faculty, and Staff of the U.S. Naval Academy engaged in teaching and learning.  Registration is required before first use.  Use the second link below to register.

What's in SciFinder Scholar

SciFinder Scholar provides access to databases produced by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), among which are those listed below, and the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) MEDLINE database. 

  • CAplus – provides references to literature in chemistry and related areas such as biomedical sciences, engineering, materials science, agricultural science and more.  Includes references to journals, meeting abstracts, conference proceedings, patents, technical reports, and more.  Coverage from 1907 to present, plus selected pre-1907 references.
  • MEDLINE - contains millions of references to primarily journal articles in the life sciences with a concentration on biomedicine.  Coverage from 1950 to present.
  • CAS REGISTRY – contains millions of unique organic and inorganic chemical substances and sequences.  Provides access to chemical substance information, including chemical structures, names, predicted and experimental properties, spectra, literature references to the substance, and more.  Includes substances reported in the literature back to the early 1800s.
  • CASREACT – contains information on synthetic organic research, including organometallics, total syntheses of natural products, and biotransformation reactions.  Includes information for millions of single and multi-step reactions and synthetic preparations.  Coverage 1840 to present.
  • CHEMCATS – provides information about millions of commercially available chemicals and their suppliers.
  • CHEMLIST – a collection of thousands of chemical substances that are regulated in key markets across the globe.  Includes inventories and lists from 1980 to present.

CAS Content at a Glance - CAS maintains a table providing an overview of database content, coverage, number of references, and update frequency.​

SciFinder Scholar Help

A variety of SciFinder Training Materials, including videos, tutorials, and more, are available from the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), producer of SciFinder Scholar, on the CAS website.  A few basic videos and tutorials by the CAS that are helpful for getting started are listed below.  (Please note that our USNA subscription does not support exporting molfiles when structure searching nor does it include access to PatentPak.)

CAS Customer Support

Users can contact the CAS Customer Center for additional assistance with using SciFinder Scholar (e.g. search strategies, database content, general information, etc.) directly at:

  • Phone:  1-800-753-4227 (North America)
  • Email:  help@cas.org

Hours:  8 a.m. - 6 p.m. Monday - Friday, U.S. Eastern Time