Poster Session: ChemInform — Printed Issue and Database

This paper describes publishing an abstracting journal and creating a reaction database in parallel. ChemInform (formerly Chemischer Informationsdienst) has been produced since 1970 by FIZ CHEMIE and Bayer AG. It is an abstracting journal covering mostly publications on new reactions and synthetic methods from about 250 major journals. It is published weekly, since 1987 fully in English. An experienced staff of scientists is making the greatest possible effort to produce a journal that is well-known for its reliability, its critical evaluation, its current awareness and its attractive layout. Special emphasis is laid on the construction of a graphical reaction scheme that makes it possible to grasp even complicated reaction sequences ‘at a glance’. The structures of the reacting compounds are drawn together with the most important reaction data (catalysts, solvents, yields, etc.). Multi-step reaction sequences are combined into one scheme to show the reaction flow. At present, this publication is mostly used as an current awareness service, for browsing through the new literature or selecting abstracts for a personal card file. For retrospective searches only an author index is available. These restricted possibilities will be overcome by the developments presented here, in order to enhance the usefulness of this product.