Should I use SciFinder or Web of Science?
SciFinder and Web of Science are complementary but not directly comparable. They differ substantially in scope, coverage, dates of coverage, and indexing methodology. CAS databases are superior for coverage of the chemical literature comprehensively in all its forms, and for indexing of chemical substances, structures, synonyms, properties, and reactions. Web of Science is an interface to ISI’s Science Citation Index, which was created primarily as a tool to search for cited references in selected source journals across all the sciences. While WOS covers a large number of key chemistry journals, it offers only keyword and author searching and abstracts, without any enhanced chemical indexing. If you really need to search the chemical literature using features a chemist needs, use SciFinder. If you need to search and analyze cited references, use Web of Science. See a comparison chart for side-by-side comparison of these two fine tools.
