CrossFire Beilstein

CrossFire Beilstein is a collection of databases that provide structure, physical, and chemical property data for more than 10 million chemical compounds identified in the primary literature of organic chemistry since the 1770's. The databases that make up CrossFire Beilstein generally provide 3 basic types of information:

--fully searchable chemical structures, chemical properties, and bioactivity records, including data describing pharmacodynamics and environmental toxicology

--fully searchable chemical reactions and preparation details

--searchable basic citations to relevant organic chemistry research publications for the period 1771-1979, and searchable basic citations, titles, and abstracts for this research literature for the period 1980-present (over 175 journals are currently indexed)

--the information above was taken from http://www.litlink.com/products/pdfs/cfb_brochure.pdf

To access CrossFire Beilstein, please follow these steps:

Look for the MDL CrossFire Commander icon on the desktop of the computer that you are using.

If the icon is there ...

--Double click that icon and, if the software has been installed properly, the Commander software will open up a new window on your computer. You may be using either version 6 or 7 of the software; both should work just fine.

--On the tool bar at the top of that new window, click the MDL CrossFire Commander icon. This will bring up a smaller window which will ask you to input a User ID and Password.

Please ask your Chemistry Professor, the Science Librarian, or another Reference Librarian for the current User ID and Password (please do not change the password you are given).

--Enter the User ID and Password and then click Okay. You will then be ready to search CrossFire Beilstein.

If the icon is not there and if "MDL CrossFire Commander" does not appear among the programs installed on that computer, please follow these steps to install the software ...

--Download the MDL Commander software to the campus computer (PC or Mac) that you are using. The software can be downloaded from the following site:

University of Wisconsin (Madison) Libraries

--Install the MDL Commander software (installation notes for Windows )

During the installation process, you will be asked to input the following information:

Group Name: grinnell

Host Server Address: beilstein.library.wisc.edu

--The installation process will put the MDL CrossFire Commander icon on the desktop of your computer (for those using a Mac, you may need to put the icon on the desktop yourself).

--Once the software is installed, please follow the steps listed above.

Additional Software:

The University of Wisconsin Web site above lists additional software that you may wish to install to enhance your use of CrossFire Beilstein. The most important of this additional suggested software is a chemical drawing program that will allow you to create structures that you can then search against the Beilstein databases. The default structure editor for which the MDL Commander software is initially set is the following:

MDL ISIS/Draw

MDL ISIS/Draw can be downloaded (for free) from http://www.mdl.com/downloads/downloadable/index.jsp (please note that while the software is free for educational use, the MDL Web site does require you to register in order to download it)

Searching CrossFire Beilstein:

For help with searching, please see or contact Kevin Engel (x4234; Kistle Science Library) and/or take a look at the user guides below developed and maintained by the University of Wisconsin (Madison) Libraries:

Beilstein Quick Guide

Beilstein Help Files

Please keep in mind that we are only searching Beilstein; the two guides above are aimed at Beilstein and an additional database, Gmelin, as well. For access to Gmelin, please see the Science Librarian.