Searching in online databases for specific numerical data and for chemicals by formulae has always been difficult or, at best, complex. Two new additional indexing services were introduced to the INSPEC database at the beginning of 1987 to overcome these problems: Chemical Indexing - for searching all kinds of inorganic compounds and material systems, and Numerical Data Indexing - for limiting searches to a specific value or range of values of a particular physical quantity. The literature of SN 1987A, the first supernova to be discovered in 1987, is used to demonstrate the powers of these new indexing tools and how they compliment traditional retrieval aids such as classification, descriptors, and identifiers.