Bibliographic Retrieval Services

Bibliographic Retrieval Services (BRS) The Bibliographic Retrieval Services, Inc. of Scotia, New York also offer efficient access to several data bases that are relevant to chemical industry needs. BRS offers an on-line version of Chemical Abstracts CA search under the file label CHEM. Often a CHEM search can be supplemental with other BRS data bases. One can use the CROS file, which provides an index to all data bases on-line at BRS. BRS data bases include NTIS, Science SCISEARCH Citation Index, the Smithsonian Information Exchange (SMIE), and BIOSIS Previews. All are described in the previous section. A few of the MEDLARS data bases are available from BRS, as well as a data base called Pharmaceutical News Index that covers drug industry news. 

For further information about Bibliographic Retrieval Services, Inc. contact the BRS Customer Service Department, Scotia, New York 12302, (518) 374-5011. 

Source IB, Xerox University Microfilms, 1973+. The machine-readable version of this data base was searched through the Online Search Services of Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, using the data files of Bibliographic Retrieval Services, Inc., Schenectady, New York. 

While TOXLINE/TOXBACK are bibliographic retrieval services, the third file to be briefly described in this paper can be considered an on-line data retrieval file. RTECS (Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances) is a product of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and is available as an annual publication (.2). NLM obtains a computer-readable file from NIOSH who maintains responsibility for file contents. The present (1977) version of RTECS contains toxicity data for approximately 26,000 substances. Table 1 provides a description of an RTECS unit record. 

The basic ILLINET Online Network (Illinois Online Network) was used as the major computer-assisted information retrieval program. Within this network IBIS (Illinois Bibliographic Information Service), which provides abstracts taken from journal articles published from 1991 through December 1993, and CARL UnCover (Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries), which provides titles to journal articles published in 1988 through December 1993, afforded much of the current and recent information reported on here. Abstracts of the pertinent literature published from 1982 through mid-1993 were also obtained directly from CA (Chemical Abstracts). It is hoped that the overlap provided this way assures the broadest retrieval of published results. All of these sources were searched by means of the following key words ... 

BRS Online Service contains over 150 bibliographic and full-text databases in the areas of biomedicine, science, technology, business, economics, humanities, and social sciences (37). BRS/After Dark is an after-hours PC oriented version of BRS Online Service, offered at reduced rates (37). BRS/Moming Search is available only in Europe and retrieves information from the BRS Online Service databank. BRS/Colleague provides access to the BRS Online Service databank, but it is a menu-driven on-line service designed for use by health professionals with or without on-line search experience... 

MARPATy produced by Chemical Abstracts Service, contains the generic structure records for patent publications since 1988, which are included in the CA file. Sources include patents from 26 countries plus EPO and PCT publications. Bibliographic records for retrieved references can be directly accessed in this database (101). 

The second and more detailed section of the chapter discusses the scientific literature data bases relevant to the process of labeling in the chemical industry. It provides information with respect to services readily available to the labeler directly including libraries, chemical references and bibliographical sources for toxicological and medical information. The importance of the computerized literature retrieval system is discussed in detail because of its ability to increase the comprehensiveness and the efficiency of the search, especially for material involving hazardous chemical data in general and toxicological information in particular. 

In full-text databases the complete articles can be retrieved. They contain the complete text of a documentation unit. In most cases this text is completed with additional data-fields, e.g., descriptor, thesauri, classification code fields. An example of a full-text database is the CJRSC (Chemical Journals of the Royal Society of Chemistry) which is offered by STN. The document, shown in Search Example 2 on the topic of waste removal, is abbreviated. Apart from bibliographic information (author [AU], title [TI], source [SO], abstract [AB]) the full article with tables and figures can be retrieved. The information found is very comprehensive but also expensive in comparison to bibliographic databases (see Chemical Abstracts Service Information System and Inorganic Chemistry Databases). 

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