http://depth-first.com/articles/2007/01/15/chemrefer-free-direct-access-to-the-primary-literature en-us 40 Walking the Web of Chemical Informatics <p>Searching the primary literature on the Internet leaves a lot to be desired. For example, nothing puts the brakes on a search faster than finding a reference to a key paper, but being unable to download it due to the access policies of the hosting journal.</p> <p>Enter <a href="http://www.chemrefer.com/">ChemRefer</a>. The site works very simply: type in a keyword and get a list of papers matching it somewhere in the article. Click on one of the search results links, and you'll get the entire article as a PDF file.</p> <p>What makes this remarkable is that most of ChemRefer's holdings appear to come from copyrighted, subscription-only journals. For example, searching for "taxol" produces links to the full PDFs for papers published in <em>Tetrahedron Letters.</em>, <em>Org. Letters</em>, and <em>J. Med. Chem.</em>, among others.</p> <p>It's not clear whether ChemRefer is legally or illegally redistributing these articles. The results are not comprehensive, indicating some form of pre-selection. The journals in question are known for their tough copyright stance and high prices, so there may be a problem regardless of how the material was originally obtained. ChemRefer's founder, William James Griffiths was interviewed on <a href="http://www.reactivereports.com/56/56_0.html">Reactive Reports</a> about his service.</p> <p>Regardless of the legal status of its holdings, ChemRefer offers an intriguing window into another world. What wonders might result if independent Internet services could mash-up the primary literature at will?</p> Mon, 15 Jan 2007 15:19:00 -0500 urn:uuid:f2ff52de-b29e-43e8-a819-e1104e9d2eed Rich Apodaca http://depth-first.com/articles/2007/01/15/chemrefer-free-direct-access-to-the-primary-literature Tools chemrefer copyright primaryliterature