Databases provide a description of articles and other publications to help you find what you need by searching through the indexed literature within the database. Most databases include, as part of the item record, the “Get it at UC” button. Clicking this button will direct you to options to locate this publication.
If we do not own a journal or other publication, you can submit an interlibrary loan (ILL) request to have the item (e)mailed to you for free from another UC library or beyond. Learn more about how to request books or articles.
When searching specific compounds or chemicals, it is very useful to use a standardized identification number that has been assigned by the American Chemical Society for use in Chemical Abstracts (on SciFinder). This number is called the CAS Registry Number (RN) and you can think of it as a type of social security number or persistent ID to locate your compound or chemical no matter how it may be labelled. Specialized databases with all or a good proportion of the content about chemistry will provide the capability to search by CAS Number and will display the number when searching by different methods (such as topic, author etc.)
From the CAS Frequently Asked Questions:
"Q. What is a CAS Registry Number®
A. CAS Registry Numbers (often referred to as CAS RN® or CAS Numbers) are universally used to provide a unique, unmistakable identifier for chemical substances. A CAS Registry Number itself has no inherent chemical significance but provides an unambiguous way to identify a chemical substance or molecular structure when there are many possible systematic, generic, proprietary or trivial names.
CAS Registry Numbers are used in many other public and private databases as well as chemical inventory listings and, of course, are included in all CAS-produced databases."