The academics amongst you may be familiar with the 6 month trial of Beilstein Crossfire, starting at Daresbury. This involves getting the Crossfire software and an account from Daresbury, and gives access to 5-6 million compounds. Instructions are on http://www.dl.ac.uk/CDS/Beilstein/quick_guide.html This trial should spark off perhaps a broader discussion on how the chemistry community should lobby/organise/fund access to databases. Curiously, there is no single mechanism for soliciting such discussion. Thus with some universities, it goes through the librarians, with others the academics. It seems worthwhile posting it here. Whilst Beilstein is of interest in providing access to molecular properties, another product that has attracted attention is SciFinder from CAS. This in effect goes down the route of extreme user friendliness. My understanding is that CHEST have got involved in discussions with both Beilstein and CAS about such products, although the community at large has yet to get involved. Perhaps people might wish to post to this forum experiences of either/comments on areas of applicability/Web interfaces/ etc In particular, it would be nice to use this 6 month trial of Crossfire to help CHEST and others know how the chemistry community feels about this area, and even perhaps help define some priorities. Dr Henry Rzepa, Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, LONDON SW7 2AY; rzepa@ic.ac.uk; Tel (44) 171 594 5774; Fax: (44) 171 594 5804. URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ ----- chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. Archived as: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To unsubscribe, send to listserver@ic.ac.uk the following message; unsubscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@ic.ac.uk)