I received a box of promotional items at the library from Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Publishing and it served as a reminder to write a few words about ChemSpider.

ChemSpider is a free database that really is easy to use. You may not see yourself as a chemical searcher but I promise that you’ll find interesting facts about chemicals you use everyday.

Explore the physical properties of compounds, Wikipedia entries, patents, vendors, spectra, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) classifications, literature references and more. ChemSpider is a structure-centric database so you don’t have to be a chemist to search it. It associates all of the possible synonyms to the structure of a compound so you can enter any name you know. Of course, if you are familiar with chemical structures you can also draw or upload a structure to search.

The RSC Publishing swag includes some really nice mouse pads with inspiring quotations from Marie Curie, Lord Kelvin, Linus Pauling, and Albert Einstein, so stop in at the Schulich Library information desk to pick one up while supplies last. Leave a comment here if you have a favourite quotation from a scientist you’d like to share.