Volume 5 Number 1

CINF E-News

Volume 5 Number 1

Fall 2003

Edited by Bruce Slutsky Table of Contents

Editor's Note CINF Sponsors Slides from the New York Meeting Open Access Publishing Photos from the New York Meeting News about Awards Applications for the CSA (Chemical Structure Association) CINF Website in Transition Publications Committee Report Membership Report CHMINF-L -- The Chemical Information Services Listserv Chemistry Site Seeing (Web Sites of Interest) Publisher Announcements Chemical Abstracts Service Highwire Press CINF People in the News News from other Professional Societies Future Meetings Editor's Note by Bruce Slutsky

I hope that everyone enjoyed the recent ACS National Meeting in New York City. This was the first time since 1991 that the convention was held in the Big Apple. You could not have asked for nicer weather. It was a little strange for me to commute from my home in Queens to the Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan. It was nice to go to another city and just hop out of my hotel room and walk to the meeting. Some months ago I said on CHMINF-L that I would organize a trip to Shea Stadium to see a New York Mets game. Well, since the team played so poorly this season, I cancelled the event. It turns out that I had to go to work that night at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. So there are disadvantages to attending a national meeting in your home city.

Return to the top CINF Sponsors submitted by Guenter Grethe

In 2003 the Division of Chemical Information again was fortunate to receive generous financial support from our sponsors to maintain the high quality of the Divisions programming at National ACS Meetings and to promote communication between members at Welcoming and Award Receptions.

The Division gratefully acknowledges contribution from the following sponsors:

Chemical Abstracts Service Platinum Level MDL Information Systems, Inc. ACS Corporation Associates Gold Level Derwent Information Silver Level Novartis Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center Bronze Level GlaxoSmithKline Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc. Contributor Level LION bioscience Louisana Alliance for Biotechnology

Return to the top Slides from New York Meeting are Now Available for some Presentations submitted by Kerryn Brandt

Slides from the CINF sessions at the Fall 2003 New York ACS meeting are being added to the CINF website as they are received. The slides, as PDF files, are available for the hyperlinked titles at the following URL: http://memtest.acs.org/c/cinf/meetings/226nm/226cinfabstracts.htm

This page is on an ACS development server as we continue work on moving the CINF website to a new home. The page can also be reached via the "Abstracts" link on the following page of the current CINF site: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/acs_upcoming.html

Return to the top Open Access Publishing: A Report from the American Chemical Society Meeting, September 2003 submitted by Bonnie Lawlor, CINF Councilor

One of the many papers presented at the recent Fall national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), held in New York City, NY from September 7-12, 2003, was a paper on open access publishing presented by Harold E. Varmus, co-founder of the Public Library of Science (PloS) and President and Chief Executive of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His paper focused on the coming revolution in the publication and dissemination of scientific works, and his intent was to persuade and encourage chemical scientists to participate in the movement of open access publishing.

Background

Varmus reviewed the evolution of print as the medium for scientific communication, beginning with the first printed journal in 1665 (Philosophical Transactions continually published and currently under the aegis of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK)) -- to the present reality of thousands of scholarly and scientific journals.

The current publishing framework supports the peer review process, provides sophisticated indexing for access and retrieval, offers printed text for distribution, and a manageable format for archiving (print, microform). However, the costs associated with this print infrastructure have escalated and created what Varmus has described as a private library mentality as only those individuals and institutions who can afford subscriptions have ready access to current scientific communication. He contends that the Internet now provides the potential for developing the public library through which one electronic publication can be globally distributed and freely accessed by all. He listed the obvious attributes of this new publishing infrastructure as providing: 1) an improved format for data presentation; 2) a potential archive for both new and old publications; 3) a huge capacity for searching; and 4) an opportunity to build novel and innovative features into publications including multi-media. And he asked the audience to consider the difference between a printed genome database rather than the current electronic file that grows on a daily basis due to the direct input of researchers: Which model, he challenged, provides the better medium for access, retrieval and the rapid application of new ideas (and hence an acceleration in the scientific process overall)? Varmus described what he termed the "Gutenberg Liabilities" of the print medium: The rising cost of print publications that is strangling libraries and resulting in the death of books; the high profit margins of print journals that, in his opinion, benefits only publishers; and the very obvious disadvantages of print versus electronic format in distribution and use.

Open Access Publishing

Varmus described open access publishing as publication on the web that allows for the full range of uses facilitated by the digital format free of charge, but subject to proper attribution. The publication is really an article (or a group of articles all peer reviewed) that is deposited immediately in a public online archive for access, search and retrieval. There is no elapsed time between publication and online availability. The potential benefits of this new publishing infrastructure were noted as follows:

Their material is immediately available to the largest possible Authors: audience worldwide. They have access to all of the published literature, not merely affordable segments. They can download, copy, print and archive Users: as needed. The ability to perform full-text searches and data mining is inherent in this model well beyond the limitations of standard Boolean text searches.

Current Online Publishing

Varmus pointed out that several online publishing models currently exist, but that he believes that their business models are less than optimum in the service of science. For example, while some publishers do provide free services to the poorest countries, most online journals require a paid subscription and are free only after a specified time period, and only if the publisher chooses to make them available. PubMed Central (also founded by Varmus when he was the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides only limited open access as does BioMed Central which offers, as of this writing, 57 open access titles. Varmus argued that the Public Library of Science, of which he is a co-founder, offers the model with the greatest potential to ensure the broadest distribution of scientific research.

Public Library of Science (PloS)

This initiative was founded with a $9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in December 2002, as well as in-kind support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The goals of this publishing project are to: 1. Open the doors to the world's library of scientific knowledge by giving any scientist, physician, patient, or student anywhere in the world unlimited access to the latest scientific research, 2. Facilitate research, informed medical practice, and education by making it possible to freely search the full text of every published article to locate specific ideas, methods, experimental results, and observations; and, 3. Enable scientists, librarians, publishers, and entrepreneurs to develop innovative ways to explore and use the world's treasury of scientific ideas and discoveries.

The first journal -- PLoS Biology -- will be published in October 2003, and a second in the field of medicine is planned for release in the Spring of 2004. Additional specialty titles and archival journals are planned for the future. The journals will cover material at the interfaces between biology, chemistry, medicine and mathematics. They will include opinion and commentary sections, and all material will undergo rigorous and constructive peer review. PloS Biology can also be ordered in print format with a charter subscription costing $160 for 15 issues (Allen Press). Varmus stated that PloS has a staff of excellent professional and academic editors, and that the project has been enthusiastically received within the scientific community. He believes that this project will overcome barriers to the introduction of novelty into the content and format of scientific publications.

How is this project funded? Well, in addition to the grant and in-kind support noted earlier, each submitted article is accompanied by $1,500 from the author (or the author's institution), under the assumption that publication of research results is part and parcel of the overall research expense. (BioMed Central has a similar structure, although their per author charge is $500). Varmus also stated that they have support from funding agencies, and that he firmly believes that they have a viable business plan. He commented that in the print model the average research article can require as much as $200K to produce, and he believes that when economies of scale are reached with the open access model, the cost of scientific communication will be reduced in aggregate. He has noted a growing movement towards open access publishing in other journals as well, and believes that the momentum for success has been created.

Resistance to Open Access Publishing

When asked what resistance the open access movement faces, Varmus noted that there are several challenges that must be overcome. First, people who have a dependency upon journals in paper format because of age, technology limitations, etc., are opposed to electronic journals in general. Certainly the established publishing houses that have a significant investment -- and revenue stream -- attached to the current publishing framework are very opposed to open access. Even non-profit Society publishers have business plans that are firmly entrenched upon journal revenues. And students and post-docs have a very real concern with regard to attribution of work that is published via open access models -- will their tenure opportunities be negatively impacted if they publish outside the current mainstream publishing houses? But Varmus believes that this resistance will weaken over time as the proven advantages of open access publishing become entrenched in the culture of science and eventually outweigh the initial concerns.

Open Access Publishing from the Perspective of Chemistry

Varmus's list of open access publishing advantages to chemists could actually be applied to any scholarly discipline. These are as follows: 1) the barrier-free retrieval of knowledge from enhanced digital archives; 2) the reduced cost of publishing; 3) more public access to chemistry as a discipline; and 4) the promotion of trans-disciplinary research. He suggested that perhaps a public digital library could initially be created for chemists by morphing Chemical Abstract Services' SciFinder with the delayed or immediate deposition of journals and articles. He also suggested that perhaps with the help of funding agencies, better digital libraries in chemistry could be created along with the requisite search tools. And he recommended that chemists serve as advocates for open access journals and articles beginning with the biological, physical and computational interfaces.

Are Traditional Indexes Awaiting Extinction?

When asked about the ability to effectively access, search and retrieve open access material, Varmus was vehement in his stated belief that improved search engines will be key, and that traditional indexing as currently performed will gradually disappear as the proven need for such indexing declines. Again, the defining moment, in Varmus's opinion, will be at the point in time when open access publishing ultimately reaches a critical mass of material that meets the requirements of the majority of researchers.

For more Information on the Public Library of Science go to: http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/

For information on BioMed Central go to: http://www.biomedcentral.com/

For information on Dr. Harold Varmus go to: http://www.plos.org/about/board.html#Varmus For a list of Alternative Publishing Initiatives go to: http://www.alpsp.org/htp_altpubs.htm and http://www.open- access.org/list.html

Additional reading list: http://www.nnlm.gov/libinfo/ejournals/addreading.html#open.html

All URLs were last accessed on September 23, 2003.

Copyright 2003: Reprinted with permission by NFAIS, 1518 Walnut St, Suite 307, Philadelphia, PA 19102. For more information contact Bonnie Lawlor, Executive Director atmailto:[email protected]. NFAIS is a registered Trademark.

Return to the Top Some Photos from the New York Meeting submitted by Bill Town

Frank Allen receives the Herman Skolnik Award from Chuck Huber Andy Berks receives his pin from Chuck Huber for serving as CINF Chair

Grace Baysinger is thrilled as she receives an award for her participation in National Chemistry Week

Return to the top News About Awards

2004 Herman Skolnik Award Winner Announced submitted by Bill Town

The Herman Skolnik Award of the ACS Division of Chemical Information, recognizing outstanding contributions to and achievements in the theory and practice of chemical information science, will be presented at the Fall 2004 ACS meeting in Philadelphia to Professor Peter Johnson.

Since 1980, Peter has had a long and distinguished career at the University of Leeds. He was Head of the School of Chemistry from 1998 to 2001, and has been Director of the Institute for Computer Applications in Molecular Sciences (ICAMS) since 1988 and Professor of Computational Chemistry since 1995. During his time there, he has made Leeds one of the world's leading centres for academic research in chemical information science and has made significant contributions to computer-aided synthesis design, reaction indexing and retrieval, and de novo ligand design.

However, he is equally well known as Managing Director of Orac Ltd (from 1987 until its acquisition by Robert Maxwell and subsequent demise following the collapse of the Maxwell empire in 1992) and for setting up a charitable organisation LHASA UK to promote the use of the LHASA program in the drug discovery programmes of leading pharmaceutical companies. Many of the key staff of Orac Ltd (all alumni of Peter's group) went on to form the specialist chemical database company Synopsys Ltd which was acquired by Pharmacopoeia Inc in 2000 and is now an important part of Accelrys.

Over the last decade, Peter's group at ICAMS has developed a number of key software systems including HIPPO (a system for analysis of the receptor site of a protein), SPROUT (a system for growing ligands in protein binding sites), CEASA (a system which evaluates the hypothetical structures generated by SPROUT) and CLiDE (a system for the automatic extraction of chemical information from the scientific literature). Fees from commercial licenses of these systems have made a substantial contribution to the funding of the ICAMS research group.

Return to the top

Bill has also given the procedure for nominations for the 2005 Herman Skolnik Award which will be announced at the Fall 2004 National Meeting in Philadelphia:

Background:

The ACS Division of Chemical Information established this Award to recognize outstanding contributions to and achievements in the theory and practice of chemical information science. The Award is named in honor of the first recipient, Herman Skolnik. By this Award, the Division of Chemical Information hopes to encourage the continuing advancement of chemical information science in areas such as:

Design of new and unique computerized information systems; Preparation and dissemination of chemical information; Editorial innovations; Design of new indexing, classification, and notation systems; Chemical nomenclature; Structure-activity relationships; and Numerical data correlation and evaluation.

The Award consists of a $2000 honorarium and a plaque. The recipient is expected to give an address at the time of the Award presentation. In recent years, the Award Symposium has been organized by the recipient.

Procedure:

Nomination letters should describe the nominee's contributions to the field of chemical information and should include supportive materials such as a biographical sketch and a list of publications and presentations. Three seconding letters are also required. Preferably all of these materials should be submitted in electronic form (as emails and attached files). The deadline for nominations is June 1 in the year preceding the award presentation. Nominations should be sent to me ([email protected]) as CINF Awards Committee Chair.

Hence a rough timeline for the 2005 award will be as follows:

Spring 2004 - call for nominations will be issued June 1st 2004 - deadline for receiving nominations Nominations will be assessed and previous Award winners may be consulted Fall 2004 ACS meeting - jury will meet to select the 2005 award winner 2005 award winner is announced after s/he agrees to accept the award Planning for 2005 Herman Skolnik Award Symposium begins Fall 2005 ACS meeting - 2005 Herman Skolnik Award will be presented

If there are any further questions regarding this procedure, I will be happy to answer them off the list and summarise them for the list at a later date.

Bill Town President, Kilmorie Consulting http://www.kilmorie.com/ e: [email protected] t: +44 20 8699 9764

ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research reported by Wendy Warr

In 2004, the ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research (sponsored by Accelrys) will be awarded to Prof. W. Graham Richards, of the University of Oxford. The Awards Ceremony will be held on March 30, 2004, at the ACS meeting in Anaheim, California.

Return to the top Applications Accepted for the CSA Trust Award submitted by Bonnie Lawlor

Applications Invited for CSA Trust Grants for 2004

The Chemical Structure Association (CSA) Trust is an internationally recognized organization established to promote the critical importance of chemical information to advances in chemical research. In support of its charter, the Trust has created a unique Grant Program, and is currently inviting the submission of grant applications for 2004.

Purpose of the Grants: The Grant Program has been created to provide funding for the career development of young researchers who have demonstrated excellence in their education, research or development activities that are related to the systems and methods used to store, process and retrieve information about chemical structures, reactions and compounds. Grants will be awarded up to a maximum of one thousand U.S. dollars ($1,000) each. Grants are awarded for specific purposes, and within one year each grantee is required to submit a brief written report detailing how the grant funds were allocated.

Who is Eligible? Applicant(s), age 35 or younger, who have demonstrated excellence in their chemical information related research and who are developing careers that have the potential to have a positive impact on the utility of chemical information relevant to chemical structures, reactions and compounds, are invited to submit applications. While the primary focus of the Grant Program is the career development of young researchers, additional bursaries may be made available at the discretion of the Trust. All requests must follow the application procedures noted below and will be weighed against the same criteria.

What Activities are Eligible? Grants may be awarded to acquire the tools necessary to support research activities, or for travel to collaborate with research groups, to attend a conference relevant to one's area of research, to gain access to special computational facilities, or to acquire unique research techniques in support of one's research.

Application Requirements: Applications must include the following documentation:

1. A letter that details the work upon which the Grant application is to be evaluated as well as details on research recently completed by the applicant; 2. The amount of Grant funds being requested and the details regarding the purpose for which the Grant will be used (e.g. cost of equipment, travel expenses if the request is for financial support of meeting attendance, etc.). The relevance of the above-stated purpose to the Trust's objectives and the clarity of this statement are essential in the evaluation of the application); 3. A brief biographical sketch, including a statement of academic qualifications; 4. Two reference letters in support of the application. Additional materials may be supplied at the discretion of the applicant only if relevant to the application and if such materials provide information not already included in items 1-4. Three copies of the complete application document must be supplied for distribution to the Grants Committee.

Deadline for Applications: Applications must be received no later than October 17, 2003. Successful applicants will be notified by December 19, 2003.

Address for Submission of Applications: Three copies of the application documentation should be forwarded to: Bonnie Lawlor, CSA Trust Grant Committee Chair, 276 Upper Gulph Road, Radnor, PA 19087, USA. E-mail submissions, if complete, may be forwarded to the Grant Committee at [email protected] or [email protected].

Return to the top CINF Website in Transition submitted by Kerryn Brandt

At the Spring 2002 ACS meeting, the CINF Executive Committee decided to migrate the Division's website to the ACS membership server, which several technical divisions have been using to host their websites. Andrea Twiss-Brooks has hosted the site at the University of Chicago since 1996. The reasons for the migration were to provide for ease of maintenance, better backups, additional functionality, and expansion of the site.

Work on the migration has progressed, but the server has not provided the storage capacity, distributed FrontPage editing capability, and other features that we expected to have for future growth. The Executive Committee has therefore approved spending up to $300 per year to pay for hosting services from a commercial provider. The selection of a provider is in progress.

In the meantime, most of the content on the Chicago site has been migrated to an ACS development server and reorganized using Microsoft FrontPage: http://memtest.acs.org/c/cinf/

The Chicago site (http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/) remains the official site, but new information is being added to the development site with appropriate links between the two until the move to a new host occurs.

Finally, for different technical reasons, the "alias" to the Chicago site (http://www.acs-cinf.org/) is not functioning. Please use either of the above URLs to access the CINF site.

Return to the top Publications Committee

Minutes of Meeting - September 6, 2003 submitted by Bruce Slutsky

Present for all or part of the meeting - Bruce Slutsky, Graham Douglas, Svetlana Korelev, Carol Carr, Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Andy Berks, Patricia Kirkwood, Silvia Lee, Sue Cardinal, Ann Bolek.

1. Migration of the CINF Website from the University of Chicago to the ACS Server Kerryn reported that there were many difficulties with the ACS server. He was frustrated by the lack of support from the ACS. He could not use FrontPage with the ACS server. It is not possible for multiple authors to access the CINF website on the ACS server.

It was suggested that the Division use a third-party server for the website. This would cost only $250-$300/year. This request for funds will be brought to the Executive Committee later in the day. Kerryn and Andy should work together to choose a host for the website. This was subsequently approved at the Executive Committee meeting.

Alan Engel registered the domain name http://www.cinf.info/. The Division can use this domain. http://www.acs-cinf.org/ was taken off the Chemweb server and is not operational at present.

The list of CINF functionaries was not updated in the CINF website.

2. CIB issues

The Fall 2003 issue was timely and with no substantial errors. It will be David Flaxbart's last issue as editor. Norman Santora will be the next editor. Helen Yun will become the business manager while Graham Douglas will be in charge of subscriptions.

A few regular advertisers did not submit advertisements to the latest issue.

The expenses incurred in publishing the CIB increased last year.

Advertising rates were approved in 2001 for 2002.

David submitted a CIB editor's manual that was reviewed by Bruce and Graham. It was suggested that it be an addendum to the CINF Procedures Manual.

3. CINF E-News issues

Bruce set October 1 as the deadline for submission of articles for the Fall 2003 issue. The expected date of publication is October 15th.

This issue will be placed on the Stanford server. It was suggested that Grace change the password.

Press releases from CINF Sponsors will be allowed in the E-news.

The E-News should list forthcoming regional ACS meetings. 4. Salary Survey

Andrea and Sue want to do the next survey using the same forms as the National ACS Survey.

Return to the top Membership Chairs Report submitted by Ann Bolek

The Membership Committee met on Saturday, September 6th, at the American Chemical Society national meeting in New York City. The committee worked on drafting a letter to former members and recommended some changes to the new CINF Web site.

The committee encourages you to opt into the Membership Directory. As of 30 June 2003, the division has 1498 members, but only 222 of you have opted into the directory. You may opt into the directory online at http://center.acs.org/applications/memdirectory/home.cfm or print out a PDF form from this Web site to mail or fax to ACS. (This form also appears on page 60 of the Fall 2003 Chemical Information Bulletin.) Only current division members will have access to the directory, which includes your name, preferred postal address, and e-mail address. The directory is for personal use only and may not be used for advertising, circularizing, or other commercial purposes or lent or sold for those purposes.

To access the Membership Directory, you need to register at the http://chemistry.org/ portal and log in. You will then see your personalized portal home page with a welcome message that lists the divisions to which you belong. Click on the link for Chemical Information to connect to the directory. Additions, corrections, updates, and changes of address should be sent to ACS Member & Subscriber Services, [email protected] or (800) 333-9511.

If you would like to become more involved in the division, please let me know your area of interest, and I shall forward your name to the appropriate committee chair.

I am completing my term as Membership Chair at the end of this year, and the Executive Committee has appointed Alan Engel as the next Membership Chair, beginning January 2004. As Membership Chair, I tried to ensure that all new members received a letter welcoming them to the division, I tried to answer your membership questions to the best of my ability, and I worked with Andrea Twiss-Brooks to conduct the membership survey in the summer of 2002. I would like to thank the Membership Committee for their help and support.

Return to the top CHMINF-L The Chemical Information Services Listserv submitted by Bruce Slutsky and Gary Wiggins

Many chemical information professionals may not be aware of CHMINF-L, a listserv that was initiated by Gary Wiggins. It was established at Indiana University on May 1, 1991. For the past 12 years CHMINF-L has been a source of information for chemistry librarians, chemical information specialists, and chemists. Indiana University, The American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information, the Chemistry Divisions of the Special Libraries Association and of the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as the ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Scientific and Technical Information support it financially. As of October 5, 2003, there were 1484 subscribers to CHMINF-L, many of them from chemistry software or database companies. For example, the subscription list included on that date 70 Chemical Abstracts Service employees and 25 American Chemical Society employees.

To subscribe to the list, send the following message to mailto:[email protected]:

SUBSCRIBE CHMINF-L Your-first-name Your-last-name (substituting your own first and last names, of course)

To search the archives go to http://listserv.indiana.edu/archives/chminf- l.html

You can also subscribe or un-subscribe at the archive site, as well as select various options for your subscription, such as receiving a digest of postings once a day (with a one-day delay) instead of each message as it is sent.

For further information go to http://www.indiana.edu/~cheminfo/gw/trisoc94.html

Or see: "CHMINF-L, The Chemical Information Sources Discussion List," JASIS; Journal of the American Society for Information Science. v. 46, no. 8 (September 1995): 614-617.

Return to the top Chemistry Site Seeing on the Web submitted by Jean Hiebert

Scientific American Frontiers Video Archive

"Every episode of the series, from 1990 to the present, is available for online viewing." http://www.pbs.org/saf/archive.htm

PBS is offering keyword searching of their videos and tv programs. There is a chemistry/physics section of this site.

Some National Chemistry Week Sites -- Submitted by Grace Baysinger http://library.stanford.edu/depts/swain/ncw/index.html http://library.stanford.edu/depts/swain/ncw/credits.html

Return to the top Publisher Announcements

Chemical Abstracts Service submitted by Eric Shively

New SciFinder Edition Positions CAS as Leading Synthetic Chemistry Resource

Columbus, August 20, 2003 -- In its SciFinder 2004 Edition, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has unveiled unique and powerful new capabilities for chemical reaction exploration and analysis. These enhancements are integrated with CAS' weekly updated reaction database now containing 7 million reactions, making SciFinder the essential synthesis research tool for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The new SciFinder version became available to CAS customers worldwide this week.

SciFinder's new "Analyze Reactions" tool lets scientists profile reactions in terms of relevant categories, such as the catalyst used, solvent involved, the number of reaction steps, or product yields. In record time, researchers can find reactions and increase their productivity.

"With SciFinder, scientists benefit from state-of-the-art exploration and analysis software capabilities, coupled with the intellectual contributions of CAS scientists who build our reaction databases," said CAS Marketing Director, Suzan A.Brown. "SciFinder's new edition does more than ever to advance synthetic chemists' productivity, efficiency and creativity."

In addition to the new reaction features, SciFinder's new version provides structure searches of the entire CAS substance collection or allows focus by substance classes, such as coordination compounds, mixtures, polymers, etc.

All of these enhanced applications in the SciFinder 2004 Edition are also available in the corresponding version of SciFinder Scholar for students and faculty. More information about SciFinder can be found on the CAS Web site at http://www.cas.org/SCIFINDER/.

CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, is an organization of scientists creating and delivering the most complete and effective digital information environment for scientific research and discovery. CAS provides pathways to published research in the world's journal and patent literature -- virtually everything relevant to chemistry plus a wealth of information in the life sciences and a wide range of other scientific disciplines -- back to the beginning of the twentieth century. CAS publishes the print version of Chemical Abstracts (CA), related publications and CD-ROM services; operates the CAS Chemical Registry; produces a family of online databases; and offers the SciFinder desktop research tool. CAS operates STN International, a network of scientific and technical databases, in association with FIZ Karlsruhe in Germany and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation. The CAS Web site is at http://www.cas.org/.

Return to the top

New Options for SciFinder Scholar

CAS has introduced new options for increasing access to SciFinder Scholar. Following up on the popularity of the Pilot SciFinder Scholar Bachelor's 3-for-2 Share Program, a new Share Program will now be offered for Master's degree-granting schools. In addition, CAS has modified the Bachelor's Share Program to make it easier for smaller schools to participate. CAS has also introduced new, larger-sized pricing packages designed to provide more SciFinder Scholar concurrent users for larger Ph.D. degree-granting institutions.

Master's Share Program

Effective October 1, 2003, CAS will allow two Master's schools to purchase SciFinder Scholar sharing two concurrent users. Modified Bachelor's Shared Program

The new features of the modified 3-for-2 BS Share Program will take effect on October 1, 2003. While CAS still recommends that schools select their own participants for a Share Program, we are offering a new option. BS schools can now elect to identify participants for a Share Program or request CAS to identify them. Participating schools will sign individual contracts and receive invoices individually. Access will begin as soon as the Share Program is completed and CAS has 3 signed contracts. The contracts of all schools comprising a Share Program will have the same start date.

More Concurrent Users for Ph.D. Programs

The SciFinder Scholar Ph.D. Package 2 (5 users for the price of 3) has become so popular that many larger schools (with 101 or more chemistry graduate students and faculty) have requested CAS to offer additional options. We are happy to announce that effective October 1, 2003 CAS will offer new, larger-sized pricing packages to provide increased access to SciFinder Scholar for larger Ph.D.-granting schools.

Ph.D. Package 3 7 concurrent users for the price of 4 (includes SciFinder Structure Module) Ph.D. Package 4 9 concurrent users for the price of 5 (includes SciFinder Structure Module)

Any institution wishing to purchase a package for 10 or more users should contact CAS Customer Service for assistance.

We look forward to welcoming more users to the advantages of exploring scientific information with SciFinder Scholar.

For questions, contact CAS Customer Service: 1-800-753-4227 or 614-447- 3731, or send email to [email protected]

Return to the top

Highwire Press submitted by Bonnie Savon

HighWire Press (http://highwire.org/) wins award for service to nonprofit publishing At ceremonies held Sept. 18 at the British Library in London, HighWire Press, a division of Stanford University Libraries, was named winner of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) 2003 Award for Service to Not-for-Profit Publishing.

HighWire produces online versions of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly content. It hosts the largest repository of free full-text life science articles in the world, with more than 600,000 free, full-text articles online.

HighWire provides a magnificent service to not-for-profit and society publishers. Many agree that their journal web sites are state of the art, according to the ALPSP Report 03, distributed at the awards ceremony. They are truly innovative and are constantly researching new functionality for their customers. Indeed, as they get ever better at preparing our content for the web they pass on economics of scale and process efficiencies; where else would we actually see genuine cuts in costs from our suppliers? In a presentation given by ALPSP judge Charles Fry, of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, it was noted that HighWire hosts two publisher meetings a year, which have become legendary for the degree of collegiality between publishers, editors and HighWire.

With continuous online production and support of such prestigious journals as the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), Science Magazine, and The New England Journal of Medicine, HighWire has established an outstanding reputation as an innovative partner for scholarly societies in the online world. As a division of Stanford University, HighWire offers its affiliated publishers a unique opportunity to leverage the experience, experiments and intellect of leading society colleagues. Within the HighWire community, peers share with peers their successes and travails in the online publishing environment and brainstorm together for the collective good.

Stanford created HighWire Press precisely for the purpose of improving scholarly publishing through more effective use of the online environment, comments Michael A. Keller, HighWires Publisher and the Stanford University Librarian. ALPSP's award, as a form of recognition of academias common purpose with responsible scholarly publishers, is very welcome, particularly in this time of confusion about the mission and economics of journal publication.

About HighWire Press

HighWire partners with influential scholarly societies, university presses and publishers to create a collection of the finest, fully searchable research and clinical literature online. Together, these partners produce nearly half of the 200 most-frequently-cited journals publishing in science.

Since 1995, with the launch of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), to the continuous online production of hundreds of prestigious journals, such as Science Magazine, the New England Journal of Medicine, PNAS and JAMA, HighWire has established an outstanding reputation for helping to disseminate primary scientific information on the Web. For further information, go to http://highwire.org/ or, for readers outside the United States, http://intl.highwire.org/.

About ALPSP

Formed in 1972, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers' mission is to serve, represent and strengthen the community of not-for-profit publishers and those who work with them to disseminate academic and professional information. The association monitors national and international issues and represents the interests of members to the wider world. It helps its members, and others, to prepare for the challenges of the future through a program of education, training and development. (http://www.alpsp.org/)

Return to the top CINF People in the News

Bryan Vickery has recently left ChemWeb.com after over six years with the company. Director of ChemWeb since Bill Town's retirement in August 2002, Bryan has joined another Elsevier business, Engineering Information Inc. (Hoboken, New Jersey) as Vice President, Publishing - Chemistry. He will remain based in London and his main challenge will be the development of the ChemVillage platform and product offering.

Andy Berks is now a law student at Fordham University in the evening while he is working during the day at Merck.

We wish Bryan and Andy well in their new endeavors.

Return to the top News from Other Professional Societies

Engineering Libraries Division (ELD) of American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Submitted by Ibironke Lawal

Publications:

ELD has been publishing Engineering Literature Guides since 1992. Available for sale from the ASEE publications page at: http://www.asee.org/publications/cataloglist.cfm#Literature%20Guides.

Liaison:

Liaison appointment to remain at two years The ACRL/STS is planning to conduct a continuing education needs assessment and ELD will consider whether to participate. Liaison reports will continue to be published in the ELD Newsletter

Accreditation & Standards:

Considering an idea to create an outline for librarians to use in reporting for the ABET self-study report and talking points for a conversation with the dean about ABET and the library. This material could be posted on an ABET web page for ELD. volunteers for a task force for this project will be solicited for.

Fundraising/Sponsorship:

ELD receives significant donor support and maintaining good relations with donors is increasingly important. Therefore, it was suggested that a position of development / fundraising director be created.

Planning for the 2004 conference:

Some of the topics suggested for next year's conference are:

Building collections for new programs (Biomedical) Planning library facilities in 21st century, libraries as place (Steve Gass?) Invite Roy Tennant, California digital libraries, he would be the whole 1.5 hours Focus on graduate students Assessment and statistics Engineering ethics and case studies in collaboration with libraries (Jay Bhatt, to include 2 professors) Local Utah speaker? Instruction LEAP at U of Utah, freshmen curriculum, Mews Global is engineering firm Blackboard faculty get grants through library (Duke?) Federated search engine can present reserve search list on course web pages Workshops are more problematic now that ASEE charges $25 per person, makes it hard to recoup fees. We can apply for funds to pay for a workshop (mentioned marketing, Cold Fusion). Bus for Endnote workshop alone cost $500.

Special Libraries Association Chemistry Division

The Division's electronic newsletter may be found at http://www.sla.org/division/dche/Newsletters/index.html

Royal Society of Chemistry - Chemical Information Group

Their web site may be found at http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cds/CIG/cig.html

Return to the top Future Meetings

227th ACS National Meeting in Anaheim - March 28 - April 1, 2004

228th ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia - August 22-26, 2004

Regional ACS Meetings

ADMET 1 Conference - San Diego February 11 - 13, 2004

Return to the top

CINF E-News, Vol. 5, No. 1, Fall 2003