Appendix 1. Description of SciFinder Scholar

SciFinder Scholar is a database of Chemistry and Materials sciences documents. It is maintained by the American Chemical Society (ACS). acs collects and publishes data from 1907 onwards (abstracts and full bibliographic reference) of any piece of knowledge (such as journal articles, patents, congress contributions, etc) related to its relevant specific topics. It does so through its Chemical Abstract Service (CAS), which also publishes full indexes of the documents reported.

The number of journals collected in cas is not reported; nevertheless the most important ones (more than 1500 journals) are reported within seven days after publication. Patent data are collected from 61 patenting authorities; those from the nine most important ones are reported within two days from their issuance.The full database has been made available online, and is a valuable resource for libraries of research institutions of Chemistry and related subjects, also due to its very high cost of subscription.