Internationally harmonized and cost-effective control of chemicals marketed worldwide greatly depend both on the generation of and easy access to reliable and comparable experimental information. Stored data are of use only if information can be retrieved quickly in an understandable form. Some models and theories of information retrieval (e.g. fuzzy set theory, probabilistic approach, artificial intelligence) are briefly discussed first, then followed by applications (such as indexing and clustering techniques). Finally the structure of databases is briefly reviewed.