LibGuides: Honors Chemistry Project Research: Web-Based Resources

College Level Open Source Databases

Chem Spider
UNLV uses this and their library states "A free chemical structure database providing fast text and structure search access to over 28 million structures from hundreds of data sources, produced by the Royal Society of Chemistry."
PubChem (Beta Search)
UNLV's library describes this open source database: "PubChem provides information on the biological activities of small molecules searchable by compound, substance or bioassay. PubChem includes physical data, drug information, and chemical structure graphics. This database is maintained by the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)."
Protein Database (NCBI)
"... a collection of sequences from several sources, including translations from annotated coding regions in GenBank, RefSeq and TPA, as well as records from SwissProt, PIR, PRF, and PDB. Protein sequences are the fundamental determinants of biological structure and function."
RCSB Protein Data Bank
Biochemistry resource: "This resource is powered by the Protein Data Bank archive-information about the 3D shapes of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies that helps students and researchers understand all aspects of biomedicine and agriculture, from protein synthesis to health and disease."
NIST X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Database
NIST Chemistry Webbook
From the National Institute of Standards and Technology

Evaluating Sources

When you want to know whether or not a resource will be useful to you, remember to think like A-CRAB. Consider the following qualities:

A uthority (Who is the author of the content (not the webmaster)? What organization or institution published the content?)
C urrency (Do you see a copyright date that is current? Are the links up to date or broken?)
R elevance (Is the content relevant to the website and what you're researching?)
A ccuracy (What is the purpose of the website and web page you wish to use information from? Are the sources credited?
B ias (Is the information presented bias or opinion?)

Tip

Tip: To search across multiple government websites in Google, include site:.gov in the search, like this. It will limit the search results to US federal, state, and local government websites.

Courtesy of USCD https://ucsd.libguides.com/chem6c/government

Government and Health Related Websites

National Institute on Mental Health
Mayo Clinic
The Merck Index Online
"From the Royal Society of Chemistry," this database provides "authoritative...information on chemicals, drugs and biologicals."
National Institute on Drug Abuse
U.S. Food & Drug Administration (Drugs)
U.S. Geological Survey
LibreTexts
"The Chemistry LibreTexts library is a principal hub of the LibreTexts project, which is a multi-institutional collaborative venture to develop the next generation of open-access texts to improve postsecondary education at all levels of higher learning."

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association
- Climate Research
- Ocean Acidification
Department of Energy (Energy Sources is a good starting place)
- Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Energy Information Administration (good for statistics)
- Joint Center for Energy Storage Research
Environmental Protection Agency
- Climate Change (also an archived version via the Wayback Machine, as of March 7, 2017)
- Chemicals & Toxins in the Environment
- Pesticides
- Drinking Water
National Nanotechnology Initiative
- Benefits and Applications - this is a good list if you want to write on advances in nanotechnology but need some ideas for narrowing your topic to a particular "nano" application.
National Institutes of Environmental Heath Sciences
National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety
- A good starting place for background information on hazardous chemicals and other potential workplace hazards.

State agencies include the California Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), and the California Energy Commission.

Courtesy of https://ucsd.libguides.com/chem6c/government

EBooks

Hathi Trust: A Shared Digital Repository
A searchable catalog of digital books from university libraries, most of which are in the public domain.
National Academies Press
The National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council provide access to full-text PDFs of books and reports on this website.
Science Books Online
A repository of various chemistry related eBooks and websites that you may find useful. You will still need to use your web evaluation skills to determine whether the information is current enough, reliable, and related to your topic or not.

Chemistry News Sites

C&EN Global Enterprise / Chemical & Engineering News (ACS)
Professional magazine of the American Chemical Society, covering US and international chemistry news in industry, academia, and the government. Now available on the ACS Publications website as C&EN Global Enterprise, while access to the existing C&EN News website now requires an ACS membership ID login/password.
Chemistry World (Royal Society of Chemistry)
Professional/trade magazine of the RSC.
EurekAlert! for Chemistry, Physics & Materials Sciences
News/press releases from universities, medical centers, journals, government agencies, corporations and other organizations engaged in research.
ScienceDaily Chemistry
Selected chemistry news/press releases from universities and research organizations.
Phys.Org - Chemistry News
Chemistry articles from the Phys.org news service.

Courtesy of https://ucsd.libguides.com/chem6c/news