ABSTRACT
The majority of bioscience online resources are bibliographic indexes, but two other general categories of databases are available: non-bibliographic and full-text databases. A multidisciplinary index to the literature of science and technology, Scisearch qualifies as an omnibus file in the life sciences. The United States Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service is responsible for two online files frequently overlooked by life science searchers as sources of unique information not always found elsewhere. Bioscience information requests often involve chemical compounds, either exogenous or endogenous, including drugs, enzymes, hormones, food additives or ingredients in cosmetics, pesticides, detergents and other household, industrial or agricultural products. Any CD-ROM interface which helps searchers bridge the gap between their limited keyword requests and the unpredictable vocabulary actually used by bioscience authors is a bonus. Effective search sequencing within a database family thus defined involves consideration of many factors beyond subject scope or recall obtained from a necessarily 'generic' cross-file strategy.
