1. Beilstein CrossFire plus Reactions Stephen Briggs Beilstein Information Systems Helen Schofield UMIST and MIDAS Paul Meehan MIDAS

2. Beilstein’s Handbuch der organischen Chemie

3. zCommenced publication in 1881 zDefinitive source for organic chemistry information yProperties of compounds yMethods of preparing compounds z1st edition covered about 15,000 compounds

4. Gmelin Handbuch der anorganischen Chemie zCommenced publication in 1819 zCovers inorganic and organometallic compounds zEach volume covers a different element

5. Printed Beilstein and Gmelin The printed works fell out of use for the following reasons: zCost zGerman language zOther sources became easier to use ye.g. Chemical Abstracts zInformation out of date

6. Beilstein CrossFire zFirst demonstrated in 1993, e.g. at the Chemical Information Users Conference in Manchester zMajor pharmaceutical companies and consortia of universities in the USA began to subscribe

7. MIDAS Manchester Information, Datasets and Associated Services zLocated at Manchester Computing, University of Manchester zBeilstein Service is being provided by a consortium of Manchester Computing, Manchester University and UMIST

8. Beilstein CrossFire - coverage zOrganic compounds - names, structures etc. zProperties, e.g. physical data, spectroscopy zMethods of making organic compounds zReactions of organic compounds zPhysiological information

9. Gmelin through CrossFire - coverage zInorganic and organometallic compounds zPreparations zProperties zGeological, mineralogical and metallurgical information y e.g. occurrence, extraction from ores

10. CrossFire - coverage Beilstein zContains >7.5 million structures zNearly 5 million searchable reactions, and about 10 million reaction records z> 400 000 abstracts Gmelin zContains nearly 1 million compounds

11. Time period covered Much further back than most databases: zBeilstein - back to 1771 zGmelin - back to 1772 Chemical Abstracts Online: 1967

12. How to search zBy structure or sub-structure zBy numerical values of properties zBy text, e.g. bibliographic information zBy browsing indexes

13. Sub-structure searching

14. How to register zConnect to the MIDAS CrossFire web page at http://midas.ac.uk/crossfire/ zComplete the web self-registration yyou will need an Access username and password ychoose your own password, the system will give you a username