Inc. Historically, information technology has supported the creation, development, maintenance and dissemination of data stores as large field-specific databases. Such databases are generally organized to allow queries for a particular speciality which have little or no meaning when applied to other types of databases. Although these systems may be very effective for specialists in a particular field, they are poorly suited for integration of informatics between different fields. This is unfortunate, because interdisciplinary research is where the action is today.
Chemical information is no exception.
The shameful fact is that, with respect to interdisiplinary integration, chemists are worse than most. Chemical information systems are characterized by an information model which is based on associating data with molecular structure. This very powerful model has essentially transformed chemistry into a molecular science during this century by providing a rigorous basis for the storage and retrieval of chemical information. It has also resulted in nearly intransigent data systems which are of little use to non-chemists. The emergence of web technology provides both the motivation and method for cross-field data integration.