A perspective of publicly accessible/open-access chemistry databases

The Internet has spawned access to unprecedented levels of information. For chemists the increasing number of resources they can use to access chemistry-related information provides them a valuable path to discovery of information, one which was previously limited to commercial and therefore constrained resources. The diversity of information continues to expand at a dramatic rate and, coupled with an increasing awareness for quality, curation and improved tools for focused searches, chemists are now able to find valuable information within a few seconds using a few keystrokes. This shift to publicly available resources offers great promise to the benefits of science and society yet brings with it increasing concern from commercial entities. This article will discuss the benefits and disruptions associated with an increase in publicly available scientific resources.