Information on hazardous substances on the Internet - searching and retrieving

A strategy how to search for information and data on dangerous chemical sub stances is presented. First the commonly known search engines and the subje ct-specific search engines are discussed. Then directories and compilations for chemistry, environmental and health issues are presented. The DAIN-Met adatabase of Internet Resources for Environmental Chemicals which is a coop eration between the GSF - National Research Center for Environment and Heal th and the University of Kassel is briefly explained concerning the structu re, search facilities and access statistics. At the end of the article some examples of relevant Internet resources for dangerous substances are prese nted and discussed. Examples for numeric databases, bibliographic databases , metadatabases and databases for laws and regulations are given.