Abstract

ChemSpider is a free access website for chemists built with the intention of providing a structure centric community for chemists. It was developed to index available sources of chemical structures and their associated data into a single searchable repository and making it available to everybody, at no charge. While there are a large number of databases containing chemical compounds and data available online their inherent quality, accuracy and completeness is severely lacking. ChemSpider has provided a platform so that the chemistry community could contribute to improving the quality of data online and expanding the information to include data such as reaction syntheses, analytical data, experimental properties and linkages to other valuable resources. It has grown into a resource containing over 21 million unique chemical structures from over 200 data sources. This presentation will provide an overview of ChemSpider and its value to chemists as a search tool, as a public repository of information and how it can become one of the primary foundations of internet-based chemistry. I will also discuss the vision for ChemSpider and some of the lofty goals we are setting for the system moving forward.