Hello Chemweb( Com & Imperial varieties), I liked the information from Adam Hodgkin and used Google to demonstrate search engines to a student - the results were quite nice ( some peculiar results found - as usual- but easily sorted )- but when my own "name" and "chemistry" were input I was surprised to find so little reference to the Royal Society of Chemistry ( my top hits were from ChemWeb.com and the Chemical Structure Association - full marks to them !!). Perhaps the RSC would like to comment - they are THE Professional organisation for chemists - particularly in view of adverse comments (not from me) on other aspects of their efforts , previously circulated via this list. Perhaps they or the Royal Society should sponsor a chemistry (science) biased search engine we could all be happy with. On a related matter, I recently received an information leaflet about the RSC's Library & Information Centre. I liked the idea of using their CD-Roms and possibly doing on-line searches myself(preferably using CAS Sci-Finder) but was told access is only available from London. This is a poor service for the majority of members not located near London, it explains why I have never made use of this facility in 30 years of active chemistry, and with modern IT there is very little excuse for it. I will forward this email( & FAX a copy to the editor of Chemistry in Britain just in case) perhaps he might include it in the "Comments feature" of Chemistry in Britain for those members not served by ChemWeb list. Bernard. On Wed, 7 Apr 1999 11:38:55 +0100 "Rzepa, Henry" <h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk> wrote:
From: "Adam Hodgkin" <adamgh@dial.pipex.com>
Hello Chemweb
There is a very interesting new search engine on the block. Try www.google.com
I tested it with some obvious search terms (ATP, Sodium Chloride, Wendy Warr, Henry Rzepa, MDL, ChemWeb etc) and found useful results.
Particularly handy is the ability to disambiguate (ATP collects lots of Advanced Technology Programs etc -- but you clear the fog by simply adding 'chemistry' to your search term); AND the coolest feature you can immediately click on red bars which show the extent to which the page is cited (hyperlinked from other pages in the google repository). This is a useful way of ranking importance/relevance/webcentrality.
The other features of the system are well-explained at the site; but I add that the designers have put in some very cool and simple design features which they dont brag about. They style it a 'beta' version, but I am begining to use it in preference to AltaVista and Excite etc
I think it will have good special applications for chemistry.
Adam
Dr Henry Rzepa, Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, LONDON SW7 2AY; mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk; Tel (44) 171 594 5774; Fax: (44) 171 594 5804. URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/
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---------------------- Dr. B. Blessington Pharmaceutical Chemistry Dept., Bradford University. Bradford BD7 1DP. U.K. email: b.blessington@bradford.ac.uk tel: 44 (0) 1274 234704 WWW: http://www.student.brad.ac.uk/bblessin/ chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)