CINF E-NEWSVolume 4, Number 1

Edited by Bruce Slutsky

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Message from the Chair

CINF Sponsors

Boston Meeting

Committee Reports

Archivist's Report

Awards Committee

Membership Committee

Program Committee

Publications Committee

Council Report

CSA Trust Grants for 2003

CINF Involvement in National Chemistry Week

Announcements from Chemical Abstracts Service

Announcement from ChemWeb

Chemistry Site Seeing

Sixth International Conference on Chemical Structures

Obituaries

CINF People in the News

Message From the Chair

Andy Berks

I'm happy to say we had a very successful meeting in Boston. Boston really seems to be a great town for the ACS, and I thought it was one of my best meetings ever. I was particularly pleased to be making the Skolnik award to Peter Norton at this meeting. I am a big user of Markush databases, for which Peter was an important pioneer, so the event had special meaning for me.

I would like to outline my presentation at the public divisional business meeting on Monday, August 19 in Boston.

Finances. We had a surplus of $6067 in 2001. This was a larger than normal surplus, due to a $4700 stop-gap funding award from

the society. This money was earmarked for our membership survey, which was conducted this year by a contractor. Because

of this, it's likely that we will have a small deficit in 2002. Our finances are in good condition.

Election results. Pam Scott will be the new chair. Marge Matthews was re-elected as treasurer. For our councilors, Grace Baysinger was elected to the alternative councilor seat held by Mike O'Hara, Andy Berks was elected as alternate, and Joanne

Witiak was elected as our regular councilor.

Significant activities. We held a very successful online membership survey in the spring of 2002. We had 223 responses,

which we considered to be very good. There were many good ideas conveyed, and the membership committee will report on the survey summarizing the results. This survey was conducted by a

contractor with a web interface. Andrea Twiss-Brooks coordinated the survey for us and did an excellent job. The survey was paid for with a grant from the society for "stop-gap" funding, designed

to help divisions with development activities they wouldn't otherwise be able to fund. For 2003, the society will likely offer

another round of stop-gap funding. We have signalled our intent to apply for stop-gap funds to run a salary survey in 2004.

Hopefully, the same contractor will be able to handle that survey.

I want to thank everyone who was involved in the division this year, including the officers, committee members, and other members. We had a very successful year and I look forward to future years of involvement with CINF.

Andrew H. Berks, Ph.D.Sr. Information ScientistMerck & Co. Patent Dept. RY60-35126 E. Lincoln AveRahway, NJ 07065 USA732-594-1701 fax: 732-594-5832andrew_berks@merck.com

CINF Sponsors

Submitted by Fundraising Chair Guenter Grete

In 2002 the Division of Chemical Information again was fortunate to receive generous financial support from our sponsors to maintain the high quality of the Division's 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:

Gold Level

Chemical Abstracts Service

ChemWeb

Corporation Associates

Derwent Information

Bronze Level

FIZ CHEMIE Berlin

MDL Information Systems, Inc.

Contributor Level

Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc.

MicroPatent

Boston Meeting

CINF Presentation Slides from Boston

Selected presentations from CINF sessions at the 224th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Boston are available from the CINF web site. Links to the presentations from the Boston meeting, as well as other past ACS meetings, can be found in the HTML version of the abstracts:

http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/acs_past.html

Select the abstracts for the meeting of interest and look for the small CINF icon   that marks papers that have links to presentations.

Photos from the Boston meeting compliments of JoAnne Witiak may be found at http://photos.yahoo.com/rsrjlw in the cinf 2002 folder. (Editorial note: As of May 2003, these pictures are no longer available).

Phil Barnett reports that the CINF session on Careers in Chemical Information presented at the recent National ACS Meeting in Boston (Aug. 22, 2002) was written up as a feature article in the Sept. 4, 2002 issue of "The Alchemist", the free electronic journal on Elsevier's Chemweb site. You can find this article:

"Preparing for Careers in Information Science" by John K. Borchardt, at:

http://www.chemweb.com/alchem/articles/1029339691185.html

Committee Reports

Archivist's ReportVal Metanomski

1. ACS 125th ANNIVERSARY HISTORY UPDATE:

Back in June 2000, at the invitation of Frank E. Walworth of the ACS Office of Secretary, I submitted on behalf of CINF a two-part contribution on "Chemical Information":

a. "History of the ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF)", an update for the period 1976-2000, written by me;

b. "Chemical Information 1976-2000", an update for the field of chemical information, written by Wendy Warr.

It was as late as in January 2002, when I received page proofs to review. The book editor made no changes in the manuscript. No update was asked for the period June 2000-January 2002. It is my understanding that the book will make its debut at the ACS National Meeting in Boston, but it may be available for display only. Eventually, it will be mailed to the CINF Officers and Councilors.

Its revised title is: The American Chemical Society at 125. A review history 1976-2001

2. HERMAN SKOLNIK AWARD:

For the ACS National Meeting in Boston, in a number of places a shorter version of the Award's name has been used:

Skolnik Jury (CINF Awards Committee's Report)

Skolnik Award Symposium (C&EN, June 17, 2002, p. 52)

Skolnik Award (C&EN, June 17, 2002, p. 75)

Skolnik Award Symposium (C&EN, July 22, 2002, TECH-41)

Skolnik Award Reception (CIB, Fall 2002, p. 18)

Skolnik Award Symposium (CIB, Fall 2002, pp. 23-24)

I urge the CINF Officers, the CINF Award Committee, and the CINF Program Committee to USE a full name of the Award: Herman Skolnik Award in EVERY instance. This is the only correct description of the Award as it was instituted in 1976.

As I said jokingly some time ago, there are many "Skolniks" out there in the world, but there was only one unique "Herman Skolnik", after whom the Award is named.

3. ARCHIVING CINF HISTORICAL MATERIAL:

On several occasions, we have considered depositing the CINF archival material with the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) in Philadelphia. Other ACS Divisions have either done it or are considering doing it.

I am going to meet with the CHF Archivist on 18 November 2002 in Philadelphia to discuss the current trends in archiving the ACS Divisional materials. While the CHF would be considered as a primary custodian for such material, in what form should it be archived (hard copy, microform, CD-ROM, etc.)?

Also, perhaps because of the existence of the Web, can or should such material be electronically scanned and preserved in the Web archives, and if so, in whose domain?

4. OBITUARIES:a. MICHAEL P. O'HARA, CINF Alternate Councilor, passed away

on March 5, 2002.

Mike's obituary was published in the PIUG NEWSLETTER (April 2002) of the Patent Information Users Group, the CINF E-NEWS (Spring 2002), the CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING NEWS (June 17, 2002) and the CHEMICAL INFORMATION BULLETIN (Fall 2002). It has also been submitted to the CSA (Chemical Structure Association) TRUST NEWSLETTER (Summer 2002).

b. MARY H. RESLOCK, the CINF 1978 Chair, passed away on April 1, 2002.

Mary's obituary, submitted by her son, James M. Reslock, was published in the CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING NEWS on July 8, 2002.

5. [Editor's Note: Val wrote obituaries for Mary Reslock and Fred Owens for this issue]

From: Dr. W. V. MetanomskiChemical Abstracts Service2540 Olentangy River RoadP.O. Box 3012Columbus, Ohio 43210-0012phone: (614) 447-3631fax: (614) 447-3713e-mail: wvmetan@cas.org

Awards Committee Report

JoAnne Witiak and Bill Town

Items:

At the Spring meeting in Orlando, the committee welcomed new committee members: Bill Town, assistant chair; Patricia Kirkwood,

Lucille M. Wert Scholarship, and Svetlana Korolev

Meritorious Service Award -- The name of Arleen Somerville was presented to the CINF Executive Committee and approved

for the award. The Award was presented at the Fall ACS meeting in Boston, Division Luncheon.

Lucile Wert Student Scholarship

Three nominations were received, two of which were complete. Hong Zhang was selected as the awardee. Ms. Zhang has B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University and is currently pursuing a MIS degree in the School of Library and Information Science of Indiana University, Bloomington. A certificate and check were

sent to Ms. Zhang

Gary Wiggins presented the Lucille Wert scholarship award to Hong Zhang, MIS student in the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science, at the September 27, 2002

meeting of the ACS Southern Indiana Section. Also pictured is Kevin Gilbert, Chair of the ACS SIS.

Herman Skolnik Award

Four nominations will be reviewed by the committee at the Fall meeting.

Peter Norton received the award in Boston.

Committee Membership

Terms expiring in Witiak, Kalkarni, Simmons. Town replaces Witiak, looking for two additional members.

Frank Allen has been selected to receive the 2003 Herman Skolnik Award at the Fall ACS meeting in New York.

Dr. Allen has driven the development of much of the software for data acquisition and validation, and for the retrieval and analysis of information in the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), and

has also pioneered many of its research applications. His success during his career at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) is attested to by the widespread and increasing use that

is now being made of the CSD, which is distributed to over 50 countries world-wide and to more than 100 commercial

organisations, principally pharmaceutical and fine chemicals companies in the USA, Western Europe and Japan.

Allen was born in Reading, England in 1944, and obtained BSc and ARCS degrees in Chemistry at Imperial College in 1965.  He stayed there for a DIC and PhD in chemical crystallography and then spent two years at the University of British Columbia as a

post-doctoral research fellow. He moved to the embryo CCDC in 1970, first as a Research Associate and then Senior Research Associate. He was promoted to Principal Scientist in 1989, and

Scientific Director in 1997, where he has had overall responsibility for the scientific development of the CCDC. He becomes

Executive Director of the CCDC in October 2002.Call for Herman Skolnik Award Nominations

The deadline for nominations for the 2004 Herman Skolnik award is June 1, 2003. Details on application procedure can be found

at:http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/skolnik_current_nomination.html

Call for CINF Division Meritorious Service Award Nominations

The deadline for the Meritorious Service Award nominations to be voted on at the Spring meeting is March 1, 2003. Details on the

award can be found at: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/meritorius_service_award.html

Call for Lucille M. Wert Student Scholorship Award Nominations

The deadline for the Lucille M. Wert Student Scholarship Award nominations is March 1, 2003. Details on the award can be found

at:http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/wert_description.html

Awards Committee:

Joanne Witiak, Rohm and Haas, ChairLucile Decker, CASPatricia Kirkwood, Pacific Lutheran U.Svetlana Korolev, U. Wisconsin, MilwaukeeEdlyn Simmons, Procter & GambleJanardan Kulkarni, U. LouisvilleBill Town, Elsevier Science (ChemWeb)

This announcement about the Patterson-Crane Award was submitted by Ed King:

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Nominees for the 2003 Patterson-Crane Award are being sought by the Columbus and Dayton, Ohio Sections of the American Chemical Society. The biennial award, consisting of a $2000 honorarium and a personalized commendation, is given in honor of Austin M. Patterson and E. J. Crane, previous editors of Chemical Abstracts.

An international honor, the Patterson-Crane Award acknowledges outstanding contributions to the field of chemical information, including the design, development, production or management of chemical information systems or services; electronic access and retrieval of chemical information; critically evaluated data compilations; information technology applications in chemistry; or other significant chemical documentation.

Nominations for the award must be in writing and should discuss the nominee's contributions to the field and provide an evaluation of accomplishments. Materials supporting the nomination should include a biography and bibliography of publications and presentations relevant to the award. Seconding letters are required.

Send one copy of the nomination materials to The Patterson-Crane Award Committee, Ed King, Chair, CAS, P.O. Box 3012, Columbus OH 43210, oreking@cas.org for receipt by 31 January 2003.

For more detailed information, see the ACS Columbus Section web page http://membership.acs.org/C/Colu/welcome.html, or contact Ed King at (614) 447-3600, ext. 2750 or eking@cas.org.

Nominations will be judged by a seven-member selection committee consisting of Columbus and Dayton Section members as well as the Chair of the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information. The 2003 Patterson-Crane Award will be presented in May 2003 at an awards dinner to be held in Columbus, Ohio.

Membership Committee ReportAnn Bolek and Andrea Twiss-Brooks

CINF Membership Directory

A Web version of the ACS Division of Chemical Information Membership Directory is now available on the http://chemistry.org/ portal. You first need to register, and then log in at this Web site. 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. The directory includes the preferred postal and e-mail addresses for those who opted in, in accordance with the new ACS guidelines for membership directories. Alternatively, a print version of the membership directory may be requested from me (contact information below).

To be included in the directory in the future, please complete the opt-in form (http://center.acs.org/applications/memdirectory/home.cfm). You will need to provide your ACS membership number, which is on your mailing label on the back cover of the Chemical Information Bulletin. Or, you may contact me for your membership number. Those who opted in on the CINF opt-in form previously are asked to opt in directly with ACS. Thank you.

Ann Bolek, Membership Chair923 Middlebury RoadKent, OH 44240-3458 (U.S.A.)(Voice) (330) 972-6264(Fax) (330) 972-7033(E-mail) bolek@uakron.edu or cinf@compuserve.com

CINF Membership SurveyThe Division of Chemical Information recently conducted a web based survey of its members. The detailed overall results of the survey can also be seen as a separate item in this issue of CINF E-News. The leadership of CINF will be looking closely at comments and suggestions for guidance in planning upcoming programs and in contemplating changes to better serve the membership of CINF. The members of the Executive Committee would like to take this opportunity also to thank all CINF members who took the time to respond to the survey.

The total number of responses was 242 (about 17% of CINF membership). These responses were received from members in wide geographic distribution, with the largest number of responses (54 in each category) from the Middle Atlantic (NY, NJ, PA) and the East Central (AL, IL, IN, KY, MI, MS, OH, TN, WI) states. A significant number of responses from outside the US were also received (45).

CINF members are also active in many other organizations. Overlapping demands on travel funds and time commitments present challenges to many CINF members, making it difficult to attend National Meetings events. Comments and responses to various survey questions suggest that CINF leadership should focus on providing useful information to members in a variety of ways. Some excellent suggestions for improving and enhancing CINF publications were received. Communication topics were also a focus of several comments. Desire for more career and networking opportunities, regular "columns" for the CIB and E-News highlighting practical information, and possible videocasting/netcasting of technical session presentations were all suggested.

Given the concerns of the "graying" of the Division evidenced in several comments, a (perhaps) surprising number of responses were from those under the age of 45 (108 or 45%). Many respondents are also relatively new to a chemical information career, with nearly one-fourth having 5 years or less experience in the information profession.

There continues to be strong interest in a divisional membership directory. ACS has refined its policy concerning membership directory production in recent years to require explicit permission to include each members information. Therefore, it is very important that each and every CINF member who wishes to be included in a CINF directory make the extra effort to "opt in". This is a very simple procedure and only requires a simple web form (see Ann Bolek's instructions elsewhere in this newsletter for detailed instructions).

The comments by the respondents have also given the officers and committee chairs of the Division much to think about and some new directions to pursue. Some areas that were mentioned a number of times:

more CINF presence at local and regional meetings

more outreach (to scientists, students, and endusers of chemical information)

mentoring of new members

workshops and seminars on specific searching techniques

more information research content in CINF programming

Responses to questions and additional comments about technical programming will also serve to guide the Program Chair and Committee. Generally, the members' comments about programming were positive. According to the survey, CINF members have very broad interests and diverse opinions about what type of programming should be provided. There is continued interest in programs regarding updates in topics that have been covered before, with 7 topics garnering more than 100 "votes" each:

Chemical information on the web

Structure based seaching

Using web search engines for chemical information

Patent information

Chemical information in organic synthesis

Integrational bioinformatics and chemical informatics

Research use of chemistry journals

Some additional areas of significant interest (as evidenced in the comments section of the survey) are:

Electronic (laboratory) notebooks

Linking to and distribution of full text of documents

Integrated corporate/technical/business information

Specific and detailed searching strategies presentations (workshops?)

Mathematical/theoretical chemical information topics

Polymer/materials/nanotechnology information

ADME/Tox and VHTS topics

The Executive Committee and various committee chairs will be looking in detail at the survey in the coming months. We hope to improve our service to members and expand our activities in areas of most interest to our members. If you did not have an opportunity to respond to the survey, but would like to send additional comments, please contact Ann Bolek (bolek@uakron.edu or 330-972-6264) for a printed copy of the survey questionnaire.

Membership Survey Results245 responses were received from the ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF) Membership Survey conducted during the Summer of 2002, although not everyone answered every question, and a few people completed the survey more than once. The Division has 1530 members, and so that represents a 16% return rate, approximately. We would like to thank those who responded, as it will help us in our future planning for the Division.

The first question asked you your name. This question was matched up with those who expressed an interest in serving on a committee or performing another CINF function, and your name will be forwarded to the appropriate CINF committee chair. A summary of the responses to the remaining questions follows.

Geographic Region of Residence

Region Number of Percent

Responses

New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT)

17 7.0%

Middle Atlantic (NJ, NY, PA) 54 22.3%

South Atlantic (DC, DE, FL, GA, MD, NC, SC, VA, WV) 23 9.5%

East Central (AL, IL, IN, KY, MI, MS, OH, TN, WI) 54 22.3%

West Central (AR, IA, KS, LA, MN, ND, NE, OK, SD, TX) 20 8.3%

Mountain/Pacific (AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY)

29 12.0%

Canada 6 2.5%

Europe 32 13.2%

China & Japan 1 0.4%

Other 6 2.5%

Demographic Information

Gender Number of Responses Percent

Female 83 45.4%

Male 100 54.6%

Age Number of Responses Percent

20-34 36 15.2%

35-44 72 30.4%

45-54 64 27.0%

55+ 65 27.4%

Educational BackgroundMost of our members have chemistry degrees, and a significant number have master's degrees in library science. Four members have law degrees, and nine are patent agents. Biology is the degree occurring most often in the "other" category, although many other disciplines are represented, too.

Chemistry Degrees

Number of Responses Percent

Bachelor's 64 32.8%

Master's 39 20.0%

Doctorate 89 45.6%

Other 3 1.5%

Chemical Engineering Degrees

Number of Responses

Percent

Bachelor's 8 57.1%

Master's 2 14.3%

Doctorate 2 14.3%

Other 2 14.3%

Math/Computer Science Degrees

Number of Responses

Percent

Bachelor's 7 35.0%

Master's 6 30.0%

Doctorate 2 10.0%

Other 5 25.0%

Law Degrees Number of Responses Percent

Juris Doctor 4 100%

Library Science Degrees

Number of Responses

Percent

Bachelor's 0 0%

Master's 78 94.0%

Doctorate 1 1.2%

Other 4 4.8%

Other Degrees Number of Responses Percent

Bachelor's 31 40.8%

Master's 28 36.8%

Doctorate 9 11.8%

Other 8 10.5%

Patent Agent Number of Responses Percent

Yes 9 3.8%

No 231 96.3%

Employment Information

Employment Sector

Number of Responses

Percent

Private Industry 133 55.0%

Government 13 5.4%

Academic Institution 58 24.0%

Law Firm 2 0.8%

Self-Employed 10 4.1%

Retired 4 1.7%

Student 2 0.8%

Unemployed 3 1.2%

Other 17 7.0%

Number of Employees in Organization

Number of Responses

Percent

1 to 99 35 15.0%

100 to 499 25 10.7%

500 to 999 23 9.9%

1,000 to 9,999 62 26.6%

10,000 or more 88 37.8%

Full-time vs. Part-time Employment

Number of Responses

Percent

Full-time employee 209 91.3%

Part-time employee 20 8.7%

Professional MembershipsThe table and chart below show which professional memberships our members hold. In the "Other" category, the memberships occurring most often included various European chemical societies, computer and other scientific societies, Canadian chemical societies and library associations, the Chemical Structure Association, the Association of Independent Information Professionals, and regional library associations.

Professional Membership Number of Responses

American Chemical Society (ACS) 226

American Library Association (ALA) 17

American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST)

16

Patent Information Users Group (PIUG) 47

Special Libraries Association (SLA) 58

Other 57

Conference Attendance

Meetings Attended Number of Responses

ACS National Meeting 134

ACS Regional Meeting 13

ACS Local Section Meeting 29

Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference

1

American Library Association (ALA) Conference 29

American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) Conference

7

Chemistry & the Internet (ChemInt) 6

International Chemical Information Conference (Nimes, France)

15

International Conference on Chemical Structures (Noordwijkerhout)

15

National Online 11

North American Chemical Conference 1

Online World 9

National Chemical Information Symposium (NCIS)

10

Pacifichem 12

Patent Information Users Group (PIUG) Meeting

38

Special Libraries Association (SLA) Conference 49

Other 70

The "Other" categories occurring most often include local library association meetings, other scientific societies, Online (London), CAS/IUPAC conference, patent seminars/user group meetings, and CAS/STN updates. It is assumed that the CAS/IUPAC conference is the one held on chemical identifiers in Columbus, Ohio [U.S.A.] during July 2002.

In the "Other" category, factors determining attendance at an ACS national meeting include the timing/dates, whether asked to present, participate in a committee, or exhibit, approval from supervisor/manager or organization, and whether work-related.

Value of ACS National Meeting

Number of Responses

Percent

Too much 30 15.3%

Just right 151 77.0%

Too little 15 7.7%

The following table lists the number of responses to the program topics offered in the survey. Additional suggestions included computational chemistry, teaching chemical information, and others. All of the various suggestions have been forwarded to the CINF Program Chair.

Program Topics at ACS National Meetings

(Sorted by Number of Responses)

Number of Responses

Chemical Information on the World Wide Web

161

Structure-Based Searching 132

Using Web Search Engines for Chemical Information

129

Patent Information 110

Chemical Information in Organic Synthesis 106

Integration of Bioinformatics and Cheminformatics

104

Research Use of Electronic Journals 102

Chemical Information on Intranets 99

Digital Information and Electronic Libraries 97

Reaction Databases 95

Competitive Intelligence 93

Pharmaceutical Information 89

Current Awareness 84

Biotechnology Information 78

Chemical Information in Graduate Programs 73

Economic Issues in Chemical Information 72

Collection Management: Impact of E-Resources

71

Careers in Chemical Information 68

Toxicological Information 67

Copyright 66

Government Information Resources 65

Infrastructure Being Developed for the World Wide Web

61

Combinatorial Chemistry 58

Synthetic Methods 58

Licensing Electronic Resources 56

Modeling and Informatics for Non-Experts 56

Alternative Careers 49

Use of E-mail and World Wide Web for Chemical Information

Electronic Resource Number of Responses

ACS Web Site (http://chemistry.org/) 172

CINF Web Site (http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/) 126

Clearinghouse for Chemical Information Instruction Materials

(http://www.indiana.edu/~cheminfo/cciimnro.html)60

Chemical Information Listserv/E-mail Discussion List (CHMINF-L) 131

Division PublicationsQuestions: Do you have any comments about or suggestions for the Chemical Information Bulletin, the CINF E-News (electronic newsletter), or the CINF Membership Directory? What format(s) do you prefer for the CINF E-News (electronic newsletter)? What format(s) do you prefer for the CINF Membership Directory?

For the CINF E-News, 152 people prefer the electronic format, 5 prefer the print format, and 63 prefer both formats. For the CINF Membership Directory, 129 people prefer the electronic format, 15 prefer the print format, and 83 prefer both formats.

Your comments concerning the Division's publications have been forwarded to the CINF Publication Committee. Information on how to access and opt into theMembership Directory is published in the Chemical Information Bulletin and elsewhere in the CINF E-News. The Membership Directory is on thehttp://chemistry.org/ portal and follows the new ACS guidelines for membership directories. The directory is accessible by current members of the Division only, includes information for those who opt in only, and contains names, preferred postal addresses, and e-mail addresses only, in accordance with the guidelines. Ann Bolek (bolek@uakron.edu) will send a print version of the directory to those who request one, and the print version will contain the same information as the online version.

In response to those who would like an electronic version of the Chemical Information Bulletin, as well, the Division hopes to migrate its Web pages to the ACS server in the next few months. The current Web site contains abstracts of the national meetings, and in many cases, copies of the slides presented. It also includes contact information for the CINF functionaries. Except for the Membership Directory and the current issue of the CINF E-News, the Division's entire Web content is accessible currently to members and non-members alike. We shall consider adding more content, such as the Chemical Information Bulletin, in a members' only section, after we migrate to the ACS server.

Division PerformanceWhat the Division Does Well:

Programming at national meetings

Publications

Communicating with members

Awards and scholarships

Networking

Education/Instruction activities, such as how to teach chemical information

Chemical Information Discussion List

Well-organized

Social events

Opportunities for interaction between chemical information vendors and information managers

Web content

Great forum for chemical information

Co-programming with other ACS divisions

Includes presentations of interest to both corporate and academic sectors

Promotes the profession

National Chemical Information Symposium (NCIS)

Good leadership and committees

Outreach to academics

Improvements You Would Like to See:

More involvement in other ACS meeting programs.

Reaction searching talks should be presented to organic chemists in their own session.

Balance of corporate and academic topics.

Business, as well as scientific content.

Distinguish more carefully between meeting technical presentations and research reports, versus commercial product

pitches by vendors and publishers.

Additional awards for those who help with the Division or are known in the industry for their contributions.

More involvement with local sections and regional meetings.

More communication.

More active in affecting (influencing) CAS and ACS publications.

More outreach to scientists and other 'end users' of chemical information.

Keep "searching" topics separate from "informatics" topics; doesn't think CINF is presenting much that's interesting on

"searching" topics now.

Communication with those who cannot attend meetings.

Would like for ACS to have more of a presence at ALA/ACRL conferences.

Networking with student members / groups.

Workshops at a more advanced level.

More services/outreach to new members:

1. Conference buddy to help new people get around2. Quick guide to CINF (committees, activities, help wanted)

3. Scout out inexpensive, good quality eating places and hotels to keep costs down

4. Organized 'issues to think about/talk to exhibitors about'

5. Additional, publicized opportunities for new members to get involved with CINF

Make it easier to get to know more CINF members, such as adding a member profile to each CIB.

More networking opportunities at meetings.More symposia for the end user who isn't an information scientist.

More science at meetings.Try to come up with ideas for improving attendance at meetings

throughout the country.Advance note/planning of meeting presentations and topics.

Mentoring opportunities for new members or members who are seeking a mentor.

More information on materials, especially on nanoscaled or nanostructured materials and their applications.

Programs and events can be highly dominated by items pushed by the Chair.

More young people becoming active in the division.Less of the 'same, old - same, old' in regards to talks and

presentations.Hearing the same, old arguments; it gets boring and even

uninviting to new members.Tighter connection and delineation of programming with the

COMP division.I was surprised to see several topics in this member survey that seem not to have been highlighted at ACS National Meetings.

These include issues like corporate collection management, ties to the SLA, ties with other information-based groups. It seems that we really need more of this and less overlap with other divisions

on combinatorial chemistry, library designs, etc., such as:1. How do you eliminate silos of information inside

companies?2. How does a merger impact corporate chemical informatics?

3. How does a small company keep library, searching, and photocopy costs down without spending a full headcount on

them?Quarterly bulletin and newsletter content and format can be much

improved.Develop a pool of informed, experienced volunteers who can

learn the ropes before assuming an elected position.Provide more practical information.

Give outside memberships more chances to attend ACS and DCI meeting.

Outreach to high school educators and students; mentoring.The leadership is too heavily weighted toward information

professionals as opposed to information researchers. The ACS sessions point to a much broader audience. Are they all silent

participants like myself?Would like to see a well-categorized and searchable resource

center that lists all chemical information products with reviews by participants.

I think the strength of the overall CINF symposiums at ACS national meetings tends to be significantly more variable than

other divisions.More research input.

Bring more research topics into ACS symposia.More connects with other divisions, especially CHED and COMP.Put the presentations of particular interest to academic chemistry librarians on adjacent days; then, coordinate with Div. Chem. Ed. For sessions that overlap with the academic librarians' teaching

role.More on polymers and engineering, less on pharmaceuticals.

Encourage participation in other organizations like PIUG.Keep up mix of topics, not all pure chemistry applications.

Get more people involved.There are too many symposia and too many papers in each.

Symposium organizers should select a balanced program from papers offered, not extend the length of the symposium to fit them

all in.Increase access to meetings/lectures via telecommunications,

possibly by renting videotapes of those meetings.Workshops and seminars on literature searching tips and

techniques.Improved communication regarding activities at National

meetings.Must create much more awareness among young people (19-35)

about chemical information.Better positioning of the CINF program and mission within ACS and the information community, especially vis-à-vis the COMP

Division; e.g., CINF programs are often not indicated as computer or them relevant in ACS meeting programs when they are.

Better relations with COMP programs and journals.Strengthening of NCIS.

Outreach to those not as regularly involved in Division activities.More outreach to academics. We could do a lot more for smaller,

poorer four-year colleges and should do more for two-year colleges; they teach over 40% of general chemistry courses and a lot of organic. This is the major point where chemical information

instruction is introduced, and most are not getting by.Start branching out to cover the overlap between

cheminformatics, bioinformatics, computational chemistry (CAMM), computational biology; this will probably not be

traditional library science related sessions, but CINF should collaborate as necessary.

Personally, I don't get much out of things like bioinformatics, combinatorial chemistry, high throughput screening, etc. Two

reasons: First, I'm a librarian at heart, and second, I now work for a university and not a pharma company.

I haven't seen very many topics of interest to me in the abstracts of the meetings of the meetings in the past few years, especially in comparison to the annual PIUG meeting, so I would like to see

more chemical searching and structure searching topics plus more patent topics (for me to attend this instead of PIUG). In

addition, this would be a great time to offer more training

opportunities with the vendors, such as Derwent and CA Registry-MARPAT, and MMS.

More active role in chemical identification data standards.Should encourage new entrants to contribute in this area and

raise funds from pharmaceutical industries to award PostDoctoral fellowship in Chemical Information Device. Distribute standard

syllabus for 'Cheminformatics,' both graduate and undergraduate levels, and popularize in universities globally.

Too low profile.

Other Suggestions, Comments, or Concerns(Some comments have been edited.)

Are the Tri-Society Symposia published in full anywhere? I am not aware of it, but is this a means to promulgate this knowledge?

Would ACS publish this as part of the Symposia series, if they do not already do this? Any means to get the Division's name and

contributions out there would be perhaps a way to get name recognition and boost prestige and membership.

Pressure Chemical Abstracts to cooperate with other vendors, not try to overwhelm them.

I am allowed to attend as many professional meetings as I wish, but receive no funding because the budget for library faculty travel

is so bad.

While I have never had an opportunity to attend one of the Division meetings, I do look at the programs and note topics of particular interest to me, both personally and professionally. I

have noticed a significant number of papers (both presented at the meetings and in the Journal of Chemical Information and

Computer Sciences) and programs in the areas of information related to combinatorial chemistry, manipulation of electronic

information related to chemical reactions, etc. As a librarian, these topics are not interest to me. Because of the trend toward presenting programs and publications geared toward the

computational chemists and laboratory use of chemistry related software and computers, I am seriously evaluating whether or not

to continue my membership.

I'd like to see some research on the topic of what the future stands for the chemical information professionals, and some

forward looking of how people will be using chemical information in 5, 10, 20-50 years.

Please continue the NCIS conferences.

I am a university Chemistry professor concerned with optimizing the use of electronic resources within undergraduate curricula. I

would very much like to network with others that have this interest.

I first became interested in CINF because of the emphasis on chemical graph theory and QSAR/QSPR at its ACS national

meeting programs. WhileJCICS still reflects this emphasis, these topics have practically disappeared from the national meeting

symposia. If drug design, HTS, etc. are what people want nowadays, I can't fault you for giving it to them, but if the trend

continues, I will want to reconsider my membership in the Division.

Good survey, but you should tell people right up front how long it is going to be.

I stay with ACS because I still remember how well they treated unemployed members over 20 years ago, but I have very little to

do now with chemistry.

More young people; it is too inbred.

I am a brand new (as of today!) chemistry librarian. I look forward to getting to know this group better in the next few years.

I feel that information people are being released from their jobs, and that companies feel that laboratory personnel can do their

own searching.

Signed up and paid for electronic membership, but never sent any information or updates (last 3-4 months). [Membership Chair's reply: It may be several months before ACS notifies us that you have joined, depending on the time of year. You shall receive a

welcome letter (with a copy of the most recent Chemical Information Bulletin) shortly after ACS notifies us. Then, you shall receive all of our postal mailings after that: two bulletins per year and a ballot in the summer. If you have given ACS your e-mail

address, you shall be notified when the CINF E-News (electronic newsletter) is published (twice per year).]

I am a high school teacher, and I am not sure I actually know what the CINF does and how I can use it.

Would you be kind to think about sending more new chemical information by e-mail? [Membership Chair's reply: We have

made a concerted effort to limit the amount of e-mail we send, so as not to offend our members. In the past, we have notified you

when there was a new issue of the CINF E-News, when we conducted this membership survey, and when there was a

problem with the ballot in the summer of 2001. We feel that the Chemical Information Sources Discussion List (CHMINF-L) is the

appropriate forum for other announcements.]

It could just be that chemical information is going through a relatively uninteresting patch, but the programs have become very

much of a muchness, and there is rarely anything of late that is really inspiring or provoking of excited debate. Perhaps, there just

isn't a big enough issue at present.

More co-organized sessions with other divisions, such as COMP, or organizations.

Avoid scheduling Chemical Information sessions at the same time as other similar sessions (Modelling, Computers and Chemistry)

at large meetings so that attendees can attend all sessions of interest and do not waste so much time on days with no

appropriate sessions.

Concerns: Division growth or at least maintenance of a targeted membership level; financial security.

I know there is a Chemical Education division, but I really want to find out if this division has more programs on teaching chemical information in the universities. In other words, I would like to see CINF sponsor activities in Information Literacy in Chemistry. My

major work responsibility is focused on this, so I would like to see how other members do this. I am also willing to participate in

these activities, if such activities exist.

Address the problems related to the obfuscation of chemical structure information in the patent literature. The integration and use of Chemical Abstract numbers may be helpful in addressing

this problem.

I am attending graduate school, and if there is any spare time, it is very limited.

Fundraising should be improved by direct contact to probable sponsor.

I am concerned that a few vocal individuals have generally dominated the leadership in CINF in the past 10+ years with

liberal views on how information should be made available, that is, that information should be free. My concern centers on the lack of

balance within the Division leadership.

Have another summer Chemical Information Conference.

CINF needs to sort out its relationship with COMP (preferably by merger). Their respective programs at ACS meetings frequently

clash.

Keep up the good work!

Minorities should be encouraged to become members and participate in the Division programs and various committees.

I am presently more oriented toward ACM/SIGIR and the TREC conferences.

CINF is a minor division for my concerns. I am the science librarian, so chemistry is just one of my departments that I work

with. My major affiliations are with the Special Libraries Association, and with ALA/ACRL, and sometimes with the

American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) if I have time and funding to make it to the ASEE Annual Conference.

Earlier in the survey, the questions on time in/close-to 'information-related' field gave no hints, no definitions, no

guidelines about what this might mean; this will make your data in that section difficult to interpret due to ambiguity and unstated

assumptions. This is particularly true for those of us on the border between 'fields' (see improvements, above).

Clarification on attending ACS National Meetings: I felt like a kid at three candy stores simultaneously – there's so much that's

interesting taking place simultaneously that it's nerve-wracking/impossible to choose or adequately cover

yourself. Could session tapes be made/made available? Are there adequate Internet-based mechanisms to provide virtual

attendance in addition to live attendees?

It is difficult to find people to run for office in the Division.

Program CommitteeOsman Guner and Bob Snyder

Tentative Program for the New Orleans Meeting

Chemical Information Literacy -- is it affordable? (Oral symposium #2830.) Cosponsored with Division of Chemical Education

Organizers: Erja Kajosalo, Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Masschusetts Avenue, Room 14S-134, Cambridge, MA 02155; Kitty Porter, Vanderbilt University, Stevenson Science & Engineering Library, 419 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37240

Combinatorial chemistry and laboratory automation (Oral symposium #3275.) Cosponsored with Division of Laboratory Automation

Organizer: David A. Evans, Product Marketing, MDL Information Systems, Inc, 14600 Catalina Street, San Leandro, CA 94577

Current status of XML in chemistry (Oral symposium #3742.) Cosponsored with CSA Trust

Organizer: Bryan A Vickery, ChemWeb Inc, 84 Theobald's Road, London WC1X 8RR United Kingdom

E-Commerce: What it is, and what it is not? (Oral symposium #2829.)

Organizer: Terry Wright, MDL Information Systems, Inc, 14600 Catalina Street, San Leandro, CA 94577

General Papers (Oral symposium #2835.)

Organizer: Osman F. Güner, Accelrys Inc, 9685 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA 92121-3752

High-throughput experimentation (Oral symposium #3276.) Cosponsored with Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry

Organizer: Laurel A. Harmon, Striatus, 8703 Webster Hills Rd., Dexter, MI 48130

Informatics Challenges in Toxicology and Environmental (Oral symposium #3744.) Cosponsored with Division of Environmental Chemistry, and Division of Chemical Toxicology

Organizer: Scott Lee, MDL Information Systems Inc, 200 Wheeler Rd., Burlington, MA 01803

Information Challenges in Pharmacogenomics (Oral symposium #2834.) Cosponsored with Division of Biochemical Technology, Division of Medicinal Chemistry, and Biotechnology Secretariat

Organizer: Osman F. Güner, Accelrys Inc, 9685 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA 92121-3752

Knowledge Discovery and Scientific Numerical Databases (Oral symposium #2828.)

Organizer: John Rumble Jr., Standard Reference Data, NIST, 100 Bureau Drive MS 2310, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-2310

Last Wave? Reference books go digital (Oral symposium #3816.)

Organizer: Erja Kajosalo, Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Masschusetts Avenue, Room 14S-134, Cambridge, MA 02155

Librarian watch: Introduction to new hot areas in chemistry (Oral symposium #3808.) Cosponsored with Division of Chemical Education

Organizers: Kitty Porter, Vanderbilt University, Stevenson Science & Engineering Library, 419 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37240; Erja Kajosalo, Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Masschusetts Avenue, Room 14S-134, Cambridge, MA 02155

Michael O'Hara Memorial symposium (Oral symposium #3273.) Cosponsored with PIUG, ACS Committee on Patents and Related Matters, and Division of Chemistry and the Law

Organizer: Andrew H. Berks, Merck & Co, 126 E. Lincoln Ave. RY60-35, Rahway, NJ 07065-0900

Patent Searching for Non-Expert (Oral symposium #3746.)

Organizer: Andrew H. Berks, Merck & Co, 126 E. Lincoln Ave RY60-35, Rahway, NJ 07065-0900

Posters (Poster symposium #2836.)

Organizer: Osman F. Güner, Accelrys Inc, 9685 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA 92121-3752

The scientific article in the digital world: where are we and where should we be going? (Oral symposium #3745.)

Organizer: David P Martinsen, ACS Publications, American Chemical Society, 1155 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036

Publications CommitteeSubmitted by Bruce Slutsky

CINF PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE MINUTESBOSTON -- August 17, 2002

Present -- Bruce Slutsky, Carol Carr, Graham Douglas, Marge Matthews, Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Ann Bolek, Sue Cardinal, Alan Engel

CINF Salary Survey20 copies of the 2002 salary survey were sold, but two checks were returned. Thus payment has been received for only 18 copies. 6 were sold to CINF members. 4 institutions bought all 3 salary surveys, and 8 institutions bought the third edition. As of now income is under expenses, but it will be profitable when payments are received from the two...

Marge has taken the responsibility of receiving payment and sending out invoices. Graham will advertise on CHMINF-L.

The committee feels that it is worthwhile to do the salary survey again. In the future there should be better planning to meet deadlines so that the survey results can be published in a timely manner. We propose publishing a salary survey in 2004 reflecting data obtained in 2003. Andrea is interesting in getting a grant from the ACS to support this project. She would like to outsource the project to the same firm that CINF hired to do the recent membership survey.

Moving the CINF Web Site to the ACS ServerThere is no strict deadline for completing this, but we are thinking of making the transition in early 2003. Kerryn Brandt is the "Web Devo" and will work with members who have volunteered to work on the site. He is in the process of developing a template with navigational buttons on each page. For example:

About CINF

Membership

Membership Directory

How to join

Dues

History

Sponsor links

Publications

CINF E-news

CIB (in PDF format)

Meetings (with links to programs and Powerpoint presentations)

Awards

Links

Officers and Committees

Search

Passwords can be given out to committee members who can make revisions. Certain areas such as the Membership Directory, CINF E-News, and CIB will be password protected.

Andrea will burn a CD including 350 Megs including Powerpoint and PDF files. We would probably have to apply to the ACS for more disk space.

Future of the CommitteeBruce will continue to serve as Chair of the Publications Committee. David Flaxbart announced that he will step down as Editor of the CIB after the Fall 2003 edition. He has been editor for 3 years. When he steps down at the end of 2003, he will have been editor for 4 years. In the next year he will have to groom a new editor.

Ann Bolek said 12 people who answered the CINF Membership Survey stated they would be interested in being Editor of the CIB. 5 people indicated an interest in being the CIB Business Manager. Bruce will try to get in touch with these people to recruit people for the committee. We would have to find out from David how much time is needed to put together an issue of the CIB and what resources are needed.

Kerryn is currently training Cathy Misner to be the new Assistant Editor. Will we need two Assistant Editors?

Graham will serve as Subscription Manager at least temporarily. CINF has been losing money on subscription money not being collected. We may need an Assistant Business Manager.

There may be changes in the Procedures Manual that affects the Publications Committee.

Council Report

Submitted by Bonnie Lawlor and Gary Wiggins

The Council of the American Chemical Society met on Wednesday, August 21, 2002 during the Fall National Meeting of the Society held in Boston, Massachusetts. The session ran from 8:00 A.M. until approximately 12:10 P.M. This report provides some of the highlights of the Council activities.

Dr. John Crum, ACS Executive Director, Recovering from Heart SurgeryThe Council meeting is traditionally opened with a resolution and minute of silence honoring Councilors and past-Presidents who may have passed away since the prior National Meeting of the Society. At this meeting it was

also announced that Dr. John Crum, Executive Director of the Society, is recovering from heart surgery, and therefore was unable to attend the Boston meeting. Dr. Joseph Clark (CINF Chair in 1992) was appointed by the Board to serve as acting-Executive Director until Dr. Crum returns to work.

Elections for the Committee on Nominations and Elections, The Committee on Committees, and the Council Policy Committee -- CINF Members on all Three Elected-Committees!Council elected five of ten nominees to the Committee on Committees for the term 2003 through 2005: William H. Breazeale, Jr., Peter K. Dorhout, Nancy B. Jackson, Mamie W. Moy, and Wanda W. Rauscher. (CINF's Carol Duane is currently a member through 2004).

Council also elected four of eight nominees to the Council Policy Committee for the term 2003 through 2005: Eric C. Bigham, Martha L. Casey, Janan M. Hayes, and Sharon P. Shoemaker. (CINF's Merle I. Eiss is currently a member through 2004).

And finally, Council elected five of ten nominees to the Committee on Nominations and Elections for the term 2003 through 2005: Peter A. Christie, Valerie J. Kuck,Bonnie Lawlor (CINF), James W. Long, and Sara J. Risch.

Report from ACS President and President-Elect -- Focus on Government and CommunicationEli M. Pierce, ACS President, mentioned that the partnering of ACS with other professional societies is a priority for him during his term of office, as is interaction with governmental agencies. He reported that he is pleased with the increased cooperation that has developed between Divisions and Local Sections, and encourages everyone to continue in the spirit of joint activities. He also noted that the celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Women Chemists' Committee is continuing at the Boston meeting.

Elsa Reichmanis, President-Elect, reported that she intends to be pro-active with Government agencies at the State and Federal level on all issues that may impact the chemical industry. She has already had the opportunity to

interact in this regard through participation in a legislative summit arranged for ACS leaders and through a presentation made at the National Research Council's Chemical Sciences Roundtable on reducing the time from basic research to innovation. The major focus during her Presidential year will be Communication -- with the public, the media, government officials, sister societies, and ACS members. Planning is underway for a community outreach event at the aquarium in New Orleans (Spring national Meeting 2003) with both education and entertainment components. In New York (Fall National Meeting 2003) the communication theme will continue through the combined celebration of C&EN's 80th Anniversary and JACS' 125th Volume. She welcomes any suggestions on the theme of communication.

Report from Past-President -- Dr. Pavlath thanked for his Dedication to the ACSDr. Attila Pavlath addressed Council for the last time as part of his Presidential succession, counting the days and hours until he will have to step aside. He reported that he has been asked to address the Alaska Section on September 11, 2002 on the role of chemistry in national security. He gave an overview of his accomplishments as ACS President, and thanked everyone for their support. A member of Council, Dr. Mordecai Treblow, made a resolution to thank Dr. Pavlath for his 30 years of dedication to the Society and particularly for making it easier for members to become involved if they wish. Council passed the resolution.

Report from The Chair of the ACS Board -- Dr. John Crum to RetireDr. Nina McClelland, Chair of the ACS Board of Directors, was thanked for her dedication as well since today (August 21st) was her birthday -- Council sang "Happy Birthday" before she presented her report. She noted that she was very pleased to see increased attendance at the open session of the ACS Board, and asked that more people attend. She noted that Dr. John Crum, ACS Executive Director, will retire effective December 31, 2003, and that the Board is beginning to plan for his replacement. Initial discussions on the recruitment activities will take place at the New Orleans meeting. It was also reported that data is now being collected to serve as the basis for updating the ACS Strategic Plan. The matching funds program has reached its cap for 2002, but the Board took stop-gap action to continue the program for the remainder of this year. Despite economic conditions, the finances of the Society remain strong, primarily due to revenues from Chemical Abstracts Services and ACS Publications. The Board is committed to

developing the 2003 budget within the guidelines established last year; ie., the deficit will not exceed one million dollars.

Report of the Executive Director -- ACS Matching Gift Program May Continue is 2003Joseph Clark, Acting Executive-Director, reported that Dr. Crum's surgery was successful and that he is recovering nicely. He reported that income from investments and advertising is below budget, but that the deficit is partially offset by strong revenues from Publications subscriptions and CAS. The Board is looking at re-authorizing the ACS matching gift program for 2003, and will continue it for the remainder of 2002 as long as the matching funds can be found within the approved ACS budget.

Council Policy Committee -- Original Petition for Support to Divisions and Local sections WithdrawnThe Council Policy Committee (CPC) reported that the original petition to provide support to Divisions and Local Sections was withdrawn after the Orlando meeting. CPC had recommended that this be done. A new petition on this topic appeared in the Council Agenda book for consideration only at the Boston meeting. There was no discussion on this issue during the Council meeting.

Committee on Committees -- Petition to Increase the Size of Society Committees Passes amid ControversyThe Committee on Committees (ConC) reported that they had initiated a review of Committees and Committee structures in order to obtain Council input. The objective of the review is to increase member involvement in and communication from all ACS committees, and to develop a "Best Practices" guide for Committee Associates and Consultants. ConC opposed the petition to increase the size of Society Committees (increasing the minimum size from 9 to 12, and increasing the maximum size from 15 to 20) until they completed their study to see if such an increase is actually necessary. There was considerable discussion on the Council floor on this issue before a hand vote was taken. In order for the petition to pass a two-thirds approval of Council was required. The hand-vote resulted in a 67.6% approval -- slightly more than necessary.& An opponent of the petition

requested that a written vote be taken since the hand vote was so close. ACS President, Eli Pearce, asked Council to vote on the request for a written ballot. Council voted against the request so the petition passed. This whole process took more than half an hour.

ConC completed its review of three Committees -- Younger Chemists, Women Chemists, and the Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology and Symbols -- and recommended that these Committees continue. Council approved the recommendation. ConC also recommended approval of the request to change the charge for the Committee on Technician Affairs in order to provide a clearer description of focus. Council voted to approve the request.

The names of Councilors who had completed milestones years of service were read, as were those of Committee members who completed their years of service. CINF's Edlyn Simmons and Barbara Peterson were among those so honored.

Committee on Nominations & Elections -- Nominee Town Meeting to Replace Multiple Presentations at Caucuses in New OrleansThe Committee on Nominations and Elections (N&E) voted to hold a Nominee Town Meeting at the ACS National Meeting scheduled for New Orleans in the Spring of 2003. This meeting, moderated in a question-and-answer format, will replace the presentations given by nominees at the multiple Councilor Caucuses held during the National Meetings. It will allow Caucuses to focus on their specific interests, and provide a less hectic venue for the nominees. If successful, the format may be extended to future meetings. N&E has established a Task Force to look at ACS Campaign Guidelines in order to make the campaign process a fair, financially equitable, and pleasant experience for all candidates. The Task Force has completed a survey of all those who ran for ACS National Office during the past four years. The results indicate that improvements can be made, and at this meeting N&E voted to approve three initial recommendations: 1) to establish an ACS Website for the use of candidates for ACS National Office during the campaign process; 2) to disseminate the ACS Guidelines on Communication and Campaign Procedures to all ACS members in order to increase awareness of approved campaign practices; and 3) to submit a recommendation to the Committee on Budget and Finance to consider funding all nominees for President-Elect who must appear before Council for the selection of the final two candidates if their attendance is not otherwise funded by the Society. N&E also completed slates for President-

Elect 2004, Directors from Districts I & V, 2004-2006, and Director-at-Large, 2004-2006.

Committee on Budget and Finance -- ACS Expects a Net-Deficit of $4.2 Million in 2002; B&F Looks at Alternatives to the Petition on Support to Divisions and Local SectionsDr. James Burke, Committee Chair, reported on the Society's probable financial performance for 2002. At this point, the year-end results will most likely be a deficit of $4.2 million dollars. The deficit comes from operations ($1.3 million), Board appropriations ($1.7 million), and the members' insurance program ($1.2 million). The operations deficit is primarily due to lower-than-expected investment income ($730K) deficit) and advertising revenue ($625K deficit). CAS is expected to have a favorable variance to budget due to the better-than-expected sales of Sci-Finder. SciFinder Scholar is now in more than 600 schools, and new sales have averaged one per business day. Publications subscription revenue is also expected to exceed budget. Headquarters is attempting to control the deficit through vacancy management, travel reduction, and the elimination of unnecessary meetings. In addition, no new programs will be initiated unless the costs are covered by the elimination of existing programs.

The Committee voted unanimously to oppose the petition on funding for Divisions and Local Sections as it is currently written. However, the Committee also realizes that some Divisions and Local Sections do need additional support -- financial and otherwise. A joint CPC/B&F Task Force will address this issue no later than at the 2003 Spring National Meeting in New Orleans, so that if the petition does fail, immediate, alternate action can be taken.

In closing, it was noted that the Committee will have a website available by October 2002 so that all members can be kept abreast of the Society's finances.

Committee on EducationDr. Daryle Busch, Chair of the Society Committee on Education (SOCED), reported that the Committee is looking at restructuring chemical education with a focus on the interdisciplinary nature of chemistry. An introductory manual -- Introduction to Green Chemistry -- is being developed with key Sister Societies. Also, a new textbook, Chemistry, will be available next year.

Committee on Science -- 2003 Programs in New Orleans and New YorkDr. Margaret Cavanaugh, Chair of the Committee on Science (ComSci), announced several programs planned for 2003. In New Orleans, the Committee will organize a program on the stability of long-term research. In New York, the Committee will organize a program on federal funding for research projects. Other programs call for a multidisciplinary look at the technical aspects and public policy implications of global warming.

Committee on Meetings and Expositions -- ACS Meeting the Largest Event Held in Boston Since September 11thDr. George Heinze, Chair of the Committee on Meetings and Expositions (M&E), reported that total attendance at the Boston meeting as of Tuesday, August 20, was 17,121. This included 12,478 attendees, 2,664 exhibitors and exhibit-only attendees, and 1,979 guests. There were 409 booths (the 3rd largest at national meetings) and 309 companies (the 2nd largest). This meeting was the largest event held in Boston since the tragic happenings of 9/11/01.

A Task Force on National Meetings has concluded that while Divisions have primary responsibility for programming at National Meetings, fair treatment must be given to all programming entities. Guidelines on this issue will be available by the 2003 Spring meeting in New Orleans.

A Task Force on Meeting Finances has recommended that the 2003 advance registration fee be increased by $10.00 to $275.00, and that guest registration be re-instated at 10% of that amount. In 2003, the standard equipment for technical presentations will be: overhead projector/screen, LCD equipment, podium & microphone, lapel microphone, and laser pointer. 35mm slide projectors will only be made available upon request.

The 2008 Spring National Meeting scheduled for San Antonio will be moved to either New Orleans or San Diego.

Committee on Membership Affairs -- Increase in UnemploymentDr. Gerald Bass, Chair of the Committee on Membership Affairs (MAC), reported that as of July 31, 2002, there were 1,200 members requesting dues waiver as a result of unemployment -- an increase of 300 in the past

year. The petition for approval of non-U.S. applicants as Society Affiliates was approved by a voice vote of Council. This will allow non-U.S. applicants to become affiliates of ACS.

Committee on Divisional Activities -- DAC Approves Petition for Support to Divisions and Local SectionsDr. Frank Blum, Chair of the Committee on Divisional Activities (DAC), reported that the Committee had reviewed 2001 Annual Reports from 33 Divisions and 4 Secretariats. Eight out of eleven proposals submitted by Divisions were accepted for support from the Innovative Project Fund. Five Divisions were recognized at the ChemLuminary Awards -- Fuel, Geochemistry, Nuclear, ChemTech, and Medicinal. The Program Coordination meeting will be held in Chicago from November 1-3, 2002. And the next Division Leadership meeting will be held in Washington, DC from February 7-9, 2003. It was reported that as of June 30, 2002 there were 113,000 dues-paying Division members (this includes multiple Division memberships). It was also reported that 16 out of 33 Divisions ran deficits, although there was no explanation as to where the deficits arose. DAC approves the proposed petition for support to Divisions and Local Sections. While details on how the funds will be distributed were not provided, it was reported that there will be an increase in the base allotment, a modest amount for membership, an allotment for National Meetings, and an allotment for innovative projects.

Committee on Economic and Professional AffairsDr. Dennis Chamot, Chair of the Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs (CEPA), reported that 154 employers looking to fill 512 positions held interviews in Boston. As of Tuesday, August 20, 4,667 interviews had been held.

Committee on Local Section Activities -- Section Awards AnnouncedDr. Yorke Rhodes, Chair of the Committee on Local Section Activities (LSAC), announced the recipients of the awards given to Local Sections based upon the performance noted in their Annual Reports: Very Large Section - Northeastern; Large Section - Detroit; Medium-Large Section - Midland; Medium Section - Northern Tennessee; Medium-Small Section - Peoria; Small Section - Central Utah.

Special awards also were noted: The Section who did the most for recruiting/retaining membership - Cincinnati; the Section with the most Innovations - Washington/Idaho Border; the Section who did the most in support of the ACS Strategic Thrusts - St. Louis; and the Section with the most innovative use of technology - New Jersey.

It was announced that LSAC has software available to assist Local Sections in tracking their finances. Also, it was noted that 30 Local Sections have been invited to submit proposals for stop-gap funding. Also LSAC voted unanimously to approve the petition for support to Divisions and Local Sections. LSAC recommended that Council approve the petition from the Boulder Dam Section to change their name to Southern Nevada Section. Council approved the recommendation.

Committee on Chemical Abstracts Service -- CAS Continues Double-Digit Revenue GrowthBarbara Peterson, Chair of the Committee on Chemical Abstracts Service, reported that CAS continues its double-digit revenue growth. SciFinder Scholar has increased from the 400 subscribers reported in Orlando (Spring 2002) to 615 as of July 31st. Also, CAS is linked to the full-text of Publications, increasing its overall utility.

Committee On PublicationsDr. Joan Shields, Publications Committee Chair, Committee on Publications was going to use bibiometric data when monitoring journals in the future. She also reported the Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Science will be reviewed during the coming year. The Committee plans to have information on Copyright available soon on its website. C&EN will celebrate its 80th anniversary in 2003, and JACS will publish its 125th Volume in that year as well.

OtherIn closing, a resolution was read thanking ACS President, Eli Pearce, for his leadership, and the Northeastern Local Section was thanked for its assistance with the National Meeting.

Respectfully Submitted, August 27, 2002

Bonnie Lawlor, Councilorchescot@aol.com

Gary Wiggins, Councilorwiggins@indiana.edu

Applications Invited for CSA Trust Grants for 2003

Submitted by Bonnie Lawlor

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 particular, the Trust strives to create a heightened and sustained awareness of the essential role that is played in scientific research by the systems and methodologies used for the storage, processing and retrieval of information related to chemical structures, reactions and compounds. In support of its charter, the Trust has created the Chemical Structure Association Trust Award as well as a unique Grant Program. These programs are financed by investments managed by the Trust and through funds donated by industrial, academic, and government organizations that recognize the value of and benefit from research, development, and education in the fields supported by the Trust.

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 RequirementsApplications 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 ApplicationsApplications must be received no later than November 1, 2002. Successful applicants will be notified by December 18, 2002.

Address for Submission of ApplicationsThree 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 chescot@aol.com.

CINF Involvement in National Chemistry Week 2003. We Need You!

Submitted by Grace Baysinger and Kitty Porter

The ACS National Chemistry Week Task Force has been attempting to motivate public and school libraries to become involved with the promotion of chemistry to children and the general public, both during National Chemistry Week itself and throughout the year. The Task Force has created reading lists on the theme of National Chemistry Week, and has encouraged chemists to visit libraries in order to read to children on the topic. They also plan to create key-word lists so that librarians can perform searches on the topic and create their own reading lists that are relevant to their specific geographic area and demographics. One of the major objectives of this library outreach is to create a positive public awareness of the benefits of chemistry, and to encourage children to become interested in science. CINF has been asked to help with this activity, and what ACS Division is better equipped to assist with this library endeavor than the Division of Chemical Information!

The CINF Executive Committee invites all CINF members to participate in this activity. We need your help to develop reading lists and keyword lists for National Chemistry Week 2003. The theme is "Earth's atmosphere and Beyond." Next year is the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' successful flight -- the very first flight through the Earth's atmosphere. It will also be the year in which the very first flight through Mars's atmosphere takes place. The National Chemistry Week Task Force wants to focus on the difference in the atmospheres of both planets, and will consider a historical perspective on flight. However, they want to concentrate on the chemistry perspective, not that of physics.

Next year's National Chemistry Week will take place October 19-25, 2003. But most librarians who participate in promoting the event prefer to obtain information early in the year so that they can plan ahead and possibly make it a year-long event. We believe that our Division can significantly contribute to this National event by combining our collective expertise in providing suggestions for the reading lists and the key word search lists that will identify related material of interest to children and adults.

Please take the time to help with this major public outreach project. If each member provides even one title, the reading list will be outstanding! Each CINF member who provides a valid submission will be given recognition in CINF publications.

Send your contributions to either of the CINF members below who are members of the Chemistry in the Library Working Group -- a working group of the National Chemistry Week Task Force. If sending an E-mail, please put "NCW 2003" in the subject heading so that it gets immediate attention.

Grace BaysingerSwain Library of Chemistry and EngineeringStanford University364 Lomita DriveOrganic Chemistry BuildingStanford, CA 94305-5080GraceB@Stanford.edu

Kitty PorterStevenson Science and Engineering Library419 21st Avenue, SouthVanderbilt UniversityNashville, TN 37240porter@library.vanderbilt.edu

Announcements from Chemical Abstracts Service

Submitted by Eric Shively

CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS Records from Early Twentieth Century are Linked to ACS Journal ArchivesBoston, August 19, 2002 - Researchers can now use Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) information products to identify journal articles of interest back to the beginning of the twentieth century, then link to the full-text articles in the electronic American Chemical Society (ACS) Journal Archives.; The combined power of these two massive resources was announced by CAS and ACS Publications during the ACS national meeting held this week in Boston.

In effect, two complementary ACS services have been brought together to provide scientists the benefit of advanced information retrieval with the availability of a vast electronic collection of original journal literature. CAS completed its "Scientific Century" project at the end of 2001, making the bibliographic and abstract information from the entire Chemical Abstracts (CA) collection back to 1907 available for searching through its STN and

SciFinder information services. This year, the Publications Division announced the availability of its ACS Journal Archives, which provides access to more than 11,000 ACS journal issues and some 500,000 articles back to 1879.

Users of CAS services can now identify relevant ACS articles published during the earliest years of CA's coverage, which began in 1907, and complete their exploration by accessing the full-text article, using the ChemPort feature included in all CAS and STN electronic services.

"This initiative is the enhancement most frequently requested by our customers," said CAS Marketing Director Suzan A. Brown. "With our colleagues in the ACS Publications division, we are letting scientists find new pathways to the wealth of information in older literature, now more conveniently accessible through the digital research environment."

"Linking the ACS Journal Archives to CAS records was a logical step in bringing scientists the benefits of early chemical literature relevant to their research interests," said Justin Spence, Director, Sales and Marketing, ACS Publications. "This combination of resources will make it possible to pinpoint and immediately access relevant information within an important segment of early twentieth century science."

ChemPort is a feature incorporated into all CAS electronic search services, including STN Express, STN Easy, STN on the Web, SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar and CA on CD. Researchers identifying relevant articles or patents by searching CAS' and other databases on the STN International network use ChemPort to link from the database record to the associated full-text document on the web sites of participating journal publishers or patent offices for no additional charge. A list of those participating in ChemPort is available on the Web at http://www.chemport.org/.

SciFinder 2002 Offers New Enterprise-wide Information Solutions for Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Biomedical ResearchBoston, August 18, 2002 - Scientists in a variety of research fields will find new capabilities and database content matching their interests in SciFinder 2002, the newest release of the award-winning desktop research tool from Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society. Among the most important additions are analysis features for stereochemistry, new links to synthetic chemistry information and reactions

and current-awareness features for bioscience information. CAS announced SciFinder 2002 at the American Chemical Society national meeting being held this week in Boston.

"With the substantially increased reaction information, property data, and other content we've added to SciFinder 2002, scientists will find their database exploration even more productive than before." said Dr. Matthew J. Toussant, CAS Director of Editorial Operations. "We have drawn upon the best available substance information to support both chemical and biomedical discovery."

SciFinder 2002 is scheduled to become available this fall with an extensive array of new and improved features:

New analysis tools for stereochemistry will be especially helpful for medicinal chemists using SciFinder's Substructure Search

Module.

Experimental properties for more than 825,000 substances, including boiling point and melting points, will be available.

More Reactions: Thousands of reactions from documents from 1907-1985 are being added, bringing the total number of

reactions available through SciFinder to more than 6 million, from 1907 to the present.

New Panorama "Pre-Sets" allow users to more easily define the relationships they wish to explore in scientific databases. Panorama has also been enhanced to include MEDLINE

references as well as those from CAS' CAplus file.

New "Keep-Me-Posted" and "Get Reference" features will be available for sequences. A new "Keep Me Posted" option for

sequences will enable life scientists to stay current with automatic updates of results from BLAST searches and view the associated

published research.*

SciFinder was created in 1995 with the vision of providing scientists easy, point-and-click access to chemical information. The new intelligent research

tool -- a client-server product for the desktop -- was an immediate hit with scientists, assisting them and other researchers worldwide with access to

the multidisciplinary CAS databases. Today, tens of thousands of scientists at pharmaceutical, biotech, and chemical companies around the world use

SciFinder regularly to explore research topics, browse scientific journals and stay up-to-date on recent scientific developments.

CAS Adds Indexing and New Insight to Early Twentieth Century Scientific Literature and PatentsColumbus, OH, September 15, 2002 - Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has announced today that it is adding subject and chemical substance indexing to online records corresponding to Chemical Abstracts all the way back to the first issue in 1907. The indexing will give researchers more in-depth access to the findings of an earlier era of science and will mark the completion of CAS' "Scientific Century" project. The first segment to be added as the project moves back in time corresponds to CA issues covering literature for 1962 through 1966. This portion of the indexing is now becoming available online through STN InternationalM, SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar. CAS made the announcement during its European user conference now being held in Rome.

As of September 15, CAS has added nearly 3 million unique index entries to the CA and CAplus databases for approximately 1 million documents from 1962 - 1966. In total, CAS expects to add several million index entries back to 1907, making it much easier for researchers to identify publications of interest in the earlier decades of the twentieth century. Up to now, the earlier CA records including abstracts have been available for online retrieval, but search options have been limited, without the thorough indexing of subjects and substances found in CA volumes.

"Ever since we made the CA abstracts from 1907 through 1967 available online, customers have urged us to add the CAS scientists' indexing to this rich segment of twentieth-century science," said Dr. Matthew J. Toussant, CAS Director of Editorial Operations. "These index entries reflect in-depth analysis by CAS scientists of substances and subjects in the original articles and patents and enable researchers to identify that literature more effectively and better evaluate its relevance for today's research."

As each additional segment of indexing for the earlier records is completed, CAS will make it available for searching in the CA and CAplus databases on STN and SciFinder services. The first portion of the 1962-1966 indexing to become available corresponds to CA indexes for A through K for that

period. To complete the indexing for all the material back to 1907 will take more than a year.

For substances that have already been identified in the CAS Registry, CAS will associate the pre-1967 references with their CAS Registry Numbers. But CAS also expects that many records for the earlier literature and patents will pertain to substances not previously registered. Those substances will be searchable by name to identify associated literature for 1907-1966, and CAS will assign CAS Registry Numbers to them in a later phase of the project.

Announcement from ChemWeb

Submitted by Jenny Drey

Search 1.5 Million Chemical Abstracts Free of Chargehttp://www.chemweb.com/abstracts

Scientists everywhere can now search more than 1.5 million chemistry abstracts in one place on the Web - www.chemweb.com/abstracts. Free Abstract Search is entirely free of charge, and no registration with ChemWeb.com® is necessary in order to perform a search or view results.

ChemWeb.com's Free Abstract Search includes Beilstein & Chimica Abstracts Databases and journal abstracts from Elsevier Science, Kluwer and Marcel Dekker. This is the only place on the Web where such a large number of chemistry abstracts can be accessed all at once and free of charge.

To access abstracts, view search histories or perform more sophisticated searches, it is necessary to log in to ChemWeb.com®. Joining ChemWeb.com® brings all the benefits of free membership. Existing members should enter their login details.

ChemWeb's Managing Director, Bill Town, said, "We are excited to be able to offer the only source of such a vast number of abstracts at no cost to users. We are now one step further in our aim to further the provision of freely accessible, high quality information to chemists worldwide."

Contact:Jenny Drey

Tel/Fax: +44 (0)20 7622 9301Email: jenny.drey@dial.pipex.com

About ChemWeb.com®ChemWeb.com® provides complete information resources for chemical research as well as enabling communication between over 300,000 members of the worldwide chemistry community. ChemWeb.com® members can access over 350 journals and 20 databases from a variety of publishers. A number of databases offer structure-based searching and manipulation of molecular structures. ChemWeb.com® services include the Careers Centre in association with sciencejobs.com, Conference Centre, and the ChemWeb magazine, the alchemist, as well as several specialist Forums based around specific chemical fields. Details of other ChemWeb.com® news can be found at http://www.chemweb.com/press.

Chemistry Site Seeing

Contributions by Steve Rosenthal and Grace Baysinger

From Steve RosenthalThe AcroMed Acronym Search was featured in Science's Net Watch (Science 2002 February 15; 295: 1199) along with chemical acronyms search from Indiana University, Bloomington, which was covered in an earlier Site Seeing column.

AcroMed is a computer generated database of 121,436 biomedical acronyms and the associated long forms extracted from the last year of Medline abstracts (2001). AcroMed is a part of the Medstract project whose goal is to apply natural language processing technologies to extraction of knowledge from biomedical texts. The AcroMed database is searchable by either the acronym or the associated long form. Each acronym is linked to the abstracts in which it was discovered, and the long forms can be submitted directly to PubMed as searches by a single click. AcroMed also attempts to classify each long form by its semantic type.

Though the AcroMed database is highly accurate, it may contain errors, since the entire database is computer-generated and most entries have not been directly verified by expert review. Thus, authors urge you to consult the abstracts from which the acronyms were extracted, if you have reason to doubt the assignment of the long forms to the acronyms. Much of the above material was copied from the site: http://gungadin.cs.brandeis.edu/~weiluo/main3.htm

Another place to search for biomedical acronyms and their expansions is Pharma-Lexicon. The Pharma-Lexicon site allows you to look up medical & pharmaceutical acronyms and abbreviations from their database of over 56,000 terms. http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/index.php?language=&token=phwrrvxCcxErk

The Pesticide Action Network Pesticide Database is a one-stop location for current toxicity and regulatory information for pesticides. This is a comprehensive site for those seeking information about specific pesticides. However, there is no structure searching capability at the site: http://www.pesticideinfo.org/

The Surfactants Virtual Library (Surfactant Science Web Sites) has moved.It can now be found at: http://surfactants.net/

From Grace BaysingerBelow is a "grab bag" of web sites and organizations.

In scouting for things, I do not feel that I've done an exhaustive search. So, it's examples rather than a definitive list. While a few items are aimed at lower grades, most are items that will be of interest to high school or college age students, researchers, or teachers.

I must confess that in thinking about the theme, the scope is very broad and might include water quality, painting surfaces, and cosmetics -- things that clean or clean things up.

Re organizations - tried to minimize pointing to a particular company's products but included a couple as examples.

So, with all this as an intro below are some sites for your consideration. Because classes are starting next week I don't have the time to annotate entries. Hopefully, some may be useful for NCW. I'm copying colleagues in on the off-chance that they may know of a good site that should be included too. Cheers!

GB

WEB SITES:About Faces: The Postware Boom in Craniofacial Knowledge

http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/iyf/index.html

The Alchemy Web Site and Virtual Libraryhttp://www.levity.com/alchemy/home.html

The Bubblespherehttp://bubbles.org/

CDL SearchLighthttp://www.cdlib.org/cgi-bin/searchlight

Chemistry in the Modern World Laboratory (Chem 1002)http://wwwchem.csustan.edu/chem1002/CHEM1002.HTM

The Synthesis and Properties of Soapshttp://wwwchem.csustan.edu/chem1002/soap.htm

Coatings Care - Providing for a cleaner, safer, coatings industryhttp://www.paint.org/cc/

Cosmetics (MEDLINEplus Health Information)http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/cosmetics.html

Cosmetics (U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition)

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-toc.html

Detergents (from Kiwi Web: Chemistry and New Zealand)http://www.chemistry.co.nz/deterginfo.htm

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (US Department of Education)

http://www.ed.gov/free/

GermSmart: Information about Antibacterial personal Care Productshttp://www.germsmart.com/

How Does Soap Clean? Soaps are Emulsifiershttp://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa081301a.htm

How Stuff Workshttp://www.howstuffworks.com/

Car Washhttp://www.howstuffworks.com/car-wash.htm

Kids Corner (from the Soap and Detergent Association)http://www.cleaning101.com/sdakids/

The Molecular Expressions Photo Gallery

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/micro/gallery.html

Molecular Universehttp://www.molecularuniverse.com/index.html

Membranes and Filmshttp://www.molecularuniverse.com/Bound/bound7.htm

National Paint and Coatings Association - Consumer Informationhttp://www.paint.org/con_info/index.htm

Planet Sciencehttp://www.scienceyear.com/home.html

The Queen of Cleanhttp://www.queenofclean.com/

Rohm and Haas Consumer and Industrial Specialtieshttp://www.rohmhaas.com/rhcis/about_us/worldleader.html

Safe Spotting Guide (from Fabritec International)http://www.fabritec.com/stamford/spotguide/

Sciencenethttp://www.sciencenet.org.uk/Resources/chemresources.html

Soaps and Saponification: Preparation and Chemical Structurehttp://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/blsapon.htm

Soap Bubbles (from Exploratorium)http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/bubbles/bubbles.html

The Stain Removal Guidehttp://www.chemistry.co.nz/stain_frame.htm

The Surfactants Virtual Libraryhttp://www.surfactants.net/

Unilever Brandshttp://www.unilever.com/brands/unileverbrands/

The University of Minnesota Biocatalysis/Biodegradation Databasehttp://umbbd.ahc.umn.edu/

Water and Sanitation (from World Health Organization)http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/

What's that stuff?

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff.html

ORGANIZATIONSChlorine Chemistry Council

http://c3.org/

The Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Associationhttp://www.ctfa.org/

European Chemical Industry Councilhttp://www.cefic.org/

The European Cosmetic Toiletry and Perfumery Associationhttp://www.colipa.com/home.html

The Finnish Cosmetic, Toiletry and Detergent Associationhttp://www.teknokem.fi/english/index.html

International Programme on Chemical Safetyhttp://www.who.int/pcs/

Japan Cosmetic Industry Association (in Japanese)http://www.jcia.org/

National Paint and Coatings Associationhttp://www.paint.org/

The Soap and Detergent Associationhttp://www.sdahq.org/

Sixth International Conference on Chemical Structures

Submitted by Guenter Grethe

The sixth in the series of these very successful triennial conferences was held from June 2-6, 2002, at the beautiful Congress Center in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The conference was jointly organized by the Division of Chemical Information of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Chemical Structure Association Trust (CSA Trust), the Division of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences of the Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ), the Chemistry-Information-Computer Division of the Society of German Chemists (GDCh), the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society (KNCV), the Chemical Information Group, Royal Society of Chemistry, (RSC), and the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS). Initial concerns about

attendance in the aftermath of September 11 were soon laid to rest as 162 scientists from academia and industry from 17 countries participated in the technical sessions and enjoyed discussions with their peers and exhibitors.

The most recent methodologies, applications and products in the area of chemical information were discussed in 26 plenary talks and 40 posters, with a strong emphasis on predictive sciences. The conference was opened on a high note by an Award Address delivered by Peter Willett, the first recipient of the newly established CSA Trust Mike Lynch Award. It was only fitting that Mike Lynch himself introduced the recipient. New products and applications were presented in 13 Product Reviews. Traffic was heavy in the afternoons in the Rotunda where attendees viewed posters, had the opportunity to talk to 12 exhibitors, and shared their research and experience with colleagues. An important objective of the conference always has been to promote active participation by students and this year was no difference. Generous financial contribution from several organizations allowed us to provide bursaries to fourteen young researches who presented their research in excellent posters. A summary of the technical presentations will be forthcoming and a number of papers will be published in a future issue of the Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences.

Social events are an important part of any conference; they allow continuation of scientific discussions in an open environment and help building new acquaintances and research collaborations. A sumptuous Welcoming Dinner on Sunday, made possible through the generosity of Chemical Abstracts Service, started off the social events on the right foot. The high point certainly was a repeat of the previous conference's boat trip on old Dutch sailing boats on the Ijsselmeer. Beautiful weather, plenty of Old Genever and a buffet dinner sponsored by Chemical Computing Group, made for a enjoyable experience. Evening receptions were sponsored by Accelrys Ltd., FIZ Chemie Berlin, and MDL Information Systems, Inc., who also provided the conference folders. The generosity of all sponsors contributed significantly to the success of the conference. Thank you very much!

The next conference is planned for the first week in June in 2005 at the same location. Mark your calendars.

Obituaries

Submitted by Val Metanomski

IN MEMORIAMFREDERICK HAMMANN OWENS (1929-2002)The chemical information community, and many other chemists within the American Chemical Society, lost a polymer chemist, a chemical information specialist, and foremost a chemistry educator, when Fred Owens died on June 14, 2002, at age 73, after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis.

Fred was born and raised in Royersford, PA. He served three years in the U.S. Army. He received a B.S. degree from Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, in 1953, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1954 and 1958, respectively.

In 1957 Fred joined Rohm and Haas Company in polymer research. He rose to the position of section manager in plastics research where he dealt with synthesis and applications of new polymeric systems. He obtained nine patents and authored or co-authored ten other publications. In 1976 he became manager of Research Information Services, the post he held till 1992.

While at Rohm and Haas, Fred became involved in many educational activities. He was the administrator of the on-site College Classroom program with LaSalle University and Chestnut Hill College. He originated and administered the Project Labs program in which kindergarten through twelfth grade teachers were brought into the Rohm and Haas Research Division to work with scientists to develop hands-on lessons for the classroom. In 1994 Rohm and Haas Co. established the Dr. Frederick H. Owens Scholarship for Chemistry Education at Chestnut Hill College.

In the American Chemical Society (ACS), Dr. Owens was chair of of the Philadelphia Local Section in 1975 and held numerous offices in the section including editor of the Philadelphia Section publication, THE CATALYST. He represented the Section on the ACS Council for 21 years and served on a number of the ACS Council Committees, among them as chair of the ACS Committee on Copyright (1981-1983), the committee whose work affected many chemical information professionals.

He was chair of the ACS Division of Professional Relations and in 1987 received the Henry A. Hill Award of the Division "for distinguished service and achievement towards the advancement of Professional Relations." His commitment in helping young people to prosper as chemists is further evidenced by his regular talks on careers in chemistry at middle and high schools, at students' nights at the ACS Local Sections, and by counseling

at resume reviews and mock interviews. He was a coeditor of the book "Career Transitions for Chemists", published by ACS in 1995.

The ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF) was fortunate in having Fred as its staunch supporter and participant in many divisional activities. At the time of his involvement with the copyright matters he organized a symposium with an intriguing title "The Copyright Law. Bane or Boon" in 1981 and presented a paper entitled "I Want What I Want When I Want It" within another symposium on "Copyright and Ownership of Database Information" in 1983. He was instrumental in transforming the traditional library at Rohm and Haas into a modern information service, and shared that experience at a CINF symposium in 1982.

Some of us remember him as a gracious host at a reception for CINF in the Rohm and Haas building at Independence Square during the ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia in 1984.

For twelve years Fred was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Southampton (PA) Free Library and for six years he served as President of the Board.

We will miss him, especially his unbounded enthusiasm and dedication to chemistry education.

Tributes to Fred Owens by his colleagues:My relationship with Fred Owens began in the late 1976 when he became the manager of Information Services at Rohm and Haas. There are several aspects of Fred that I remember well. First, was his encouragement of education. A number of lab technicians at Rohm and Haas were encouraged to further their education through night school by Fred Owens. I experienced that same support as I attended Drexel University in the evening for three years to get my MLS. A second aspect of Fred that I remember is his belief in involvement. Fred modeled professional and community involvement throughout his life. He was not satisfied to just belong to organizations, he was actively involved. In our department at Rohm and Haas, Fred was noted for his cooking and baking skills. We always looked forward to special occasions to see what Fred's latest culinary invention would be. He never disappointed us.

Joanne L. Witiak

Little did I know when I interviewed for my first job as a chemist, that Fred Owens would someday be my manager. I interviewed at the Bristol PA Rohm and Haas Company site where Fred was a group leader in one of the polymer laboratories. We both were chemistry majors at Ursinus College and thus the interview with him was arranged. I was hired, but not in Fred's laboratory.

I went on to a position in the Information Services area. Fred married Eleanor Hankins, another Rohm and Haas chemist. They adopted three children. About 1978 Fred was appointed the Manager of Information Services. Professional development was one of his pet projects. It was at his suggestion that I became involved in the American Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Information as well as other professional societies. Fred was very active in the ACS Philadelphia Section and supported all his staff in professional ventures. The Section had a program with Chestnut Hill College to give high school science teachers additional training in chemistry during the summer. This was one of Fred's projects and he excelled at it.

I will always remember Fred's baking and the birthday celebrations we had for the staff. I especially remember a cake that he made for one of my staff who was leaving to have a baby. A gourmet, Fred was always one you could ask for a restaurant suggestion and he never failed. Cooking was one of his loves.

A holder of several patents, he was a true inventor and scientist. He had a great love of chemistry and his profession.

Barbara G. Wood

As I recall, the impetus behind the walking tour the Tues. evening of the Philadelphia meeting in the early 1980s (1983?) was Fred Owens. At the time, CINF was in the habit of organizing a "road trip" for a social on the Tuesday night of the national ACS meeting. A la "Rocky", we took our road trip in Philadelphia by foot. It was beautiful evening and I enjoyed the tour immensely as well as the informal group dinner afterward at my favorite restaurant, the Middle East (RIP).

Bob Buntrock

IN MEMORIAM

MARY H. RESLOCK(1914-2002)We have learned with great sorrow that Mary Reslock passed away on April 1, 2002, at the age of 88.

Mary, born in Hancock, Michigan, received a B.Sc. degree in chemistry and languages from Michigan College of Mining & Technology (now Michigan Technological University) in 1938, and later an M.Sc. degree in information and library sciences from the University of Michigan in 1968.

She began her professional career at the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan, in 1940-1943, then left to start a family, and returned to Dow in 1962 to work in the research computer laboratory and library. She held the positions of Manager of the Chemical Library (a technical research library) (1973-1977) and of Central Report Index (proprietary research information) (1975-1977). She also worked as a Research Logician in the Computational Research Laboratory on the development of the Dow Wiswesser Line Notation (WLN) files and programs for handling chemical structures.

This is the work for which Mary is most remembered by the chemical information community and where she made most significant contributions. At that time, computer handling of chemical structures was still in its infancy, and the WLN was the only viable computer code which allowed large number of chemical compounds to be stored and searched for both complete structures and substructures. The Chemical Notation Association (CNA), of which Mary was an active member, was formed to resolve the problems, to codify and extend the rules, whenever necessary, and to publicize them. Mary collaborated on the 2nd edition and 3rd edition of the "The Wiswesser Line-Formula Chemical Notation," published by McGraw and Chemical Information Management in 1968 and 1976, respectively.

Mary was an active member of the ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF). She served as its secretary in 1974-1976 and chair in 1978. She presented papers before the Division, which were subsequently published in the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL DOCUMENTATION.

After her retirement in 1979, she spent the next five years working at the Michigan Molecular Institute, and served as consultant in the field of chemical information. Her other activities included service on the boards of the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library (Public) and the MidMichigan Medical Center. Other professional affiliations included membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Society for Information Science (ASIS), the Special Libraries Association (SLA), and Sigma Xi.

Mary will be remembered for her effective leadership, which led to a strengthened CINF Program Committee organization and a closer cooperation between the various long and short term planning groups. She was a mentor to many of us.

Tributes by colleagues:I don't remember the year but there was an ACS meeting where Mary Reslock was an officer in CINF. She was ill (had a "horrible" cold, etc.) but would attend the meetings where her presence was required and then retire to her room and drink hot tea. Gabby Revesz and I took crackers, etc. to her. Mary had a total commitment to her responsibilities within the division and always saw that they were fulfilled.

Cynthia O'Donohue

I'm saddened to hear of the death of Mary Reslock. I remember her as a great person and professional.

In the late 70's, Mary encouraged me to be more active in CINF. This would require attendance at ACS National meetings, but my management informed me that regular attendance at such meetings would require me becoming an officer or other functionary of such a group -- Catch 22. When Mary heard that, she nominated me for CINF chair. I was Division Chair in 1980 which resulted in continued service to CINF and other ACS functions as well as fairly regular attendance at ACS meetings until recently.

Thanks Mary -- we'll miss you.

Bob Buntrock

CINF People in the News

Harry AllcockHarry has recently retired from IFI Plenum. He may be reached through e-mail at hallcock@cape-fear.net

The following is a brief bio followed by a few comments regarding Harry's parties:

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCEIFI CLAIMS Patent ServicesVice President August 1961 - June 2002Hosted Harry's parties 1963 - 2002

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONSDivision of Chemical Information of The Americal Chemical SocietyPatent Information User GroupCoalition for Patent and Trademark Information DisseminationPATCOM

EDUCATIONGeorge Washington University, B.A., Business Administration

HARRY'S PARTY COMMENTS (from Harry)Personal thoughts - Herman Skolnik would always arrive 30 minutes before the party started, stay for 1 1/2 hours and leave without his briefcase. This happened five years in a row.

Most remembered party - Las Vegas, NV. The ACS meeting was held shortly after the fire at MGM Grand and Harry's party was held in the Fantasy Tower at Caesar's Palace. About 30 minutes after the party started the fire alarm in the suite went off. When the fire marshall arrived he saw the crowd and wanted to know how long this would last. I told him for two hours so he removed the batteries from the alarm and we continued the party. Drinks were served from inside the Roman Tub and a good time was had by all.

Comments from Bob Buntrock:

My own anecdotes about Harry's parties are many and go way back to when I first became an information specialist in the early 70s and started again attending ACS and CINF meetings. The first CINF people I met alerted me about what those informal announcements about "Harry's Party" were all about. They also clued me in on protocol -- expect nothing but beer, wine, and a few pretzels. The parties were a good place to meet EVERYBODY and a good place to organize groups to go out to dinner. If

you waited too long for that, about 7:00 Harry would start announcing that he was getting hungry and was closing the bar. If you stayed that late, it was a good opportunity to dine with Harry and his long-time cohorts.

I too remember BOTH parties in Las Vegas, with Harry tending bar from the bottom of a sunken Roman bath (easily 10' x 25') at Caesar's Palace. The first, in 1980, was a fluke. The meeting had been moved from San Francisco on 3 weeks notice because of a hotel strike. Hotel reassignments were at the discretion of ACS Meeting and Expositions. Harry asked for his usual large suite and drew the (in)famous one with the sunken Roman Bath. The rest is history and when we returned to Las Vegas -- planned -- a few years later, Harry of course requested the same suite and history repeated itself.

For many years, there was a professor of chemistry from I believe Penn State, also named Harry Alcock. I don't think they ever mixed up their rooms, but the other Harry Alcock was always getting messages (and possibly visitors) asking where the party was. "Our" Harry finally contacted the professor and suggested that they coordinate plans and at least try to stay at different hotels. However, our Harry was rebuffed and ignored. Seems to me to be rather uncivil (and Masochistic) on the part of the professor.

Comments from Cynthia O' Donohue:

Harry's parties which started as small events grew to become an ACS fixture for CINF members and others. They were viewed as the best place to network etc. I remember one where some attendees got hungry and ordered pizza. Bob Buntrock could fill you in on that one. It was the Dallas meeting couple years back. I still have this vivid picture of Bob sitting on a sofa eating pizza.

Stuart KabackStu recently retired from ExxonMobil with the rank of Senior Scientific Advisor. The following is a short biography that he submitted to the CINF E-news:

Undergraduate and graduate education at Columbia, PhD in organic chemistry 1960. Joined Esso/Exxon/ExxonMobil Research & Engineering's Technical Info Division, and spent 42+ years with the company. All but a few months was spent in the Information Research & Analysis function, concentrating increasingly on patent information. Worked on just about any

subject matter of interest to the company, but with the greatest concentration on petrochemicals and especially polyolefins.

Frequent speaker, especially in CINF sessions, and organized a number of CINF symposia, most recently the AIPA symposium in Orlando, Spring 2002. Frequent author, with some highlights being the Patent Literature article in Kirk Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology (joint with Edlyn Simmons); 15 years worth of columns on Online Patent Searching (in World Patent Information); and the article Online Patent Searching: The Realities (ONLINE, 7/83 I think), based on a presentation at the Online meeting in Atlanta, 1982, and still significant for what it has to say about the need to search in multiple databases, and the concept of combined 'superrecords' which helped lead to the merged Derwent-APIPAT (WPAM) file and to the various capabilities for crossfile searching.

Long active in CINF, which I served as Assistant Secretary, Acting Treasurer, member of Long Range Planning and Program committees, CHEMTECH representative, and I still hold the world's record for most times defeated for CINF office (Chair-Elect 3 times, Councilor once).

Member of advisory committees for CAS, Derwent, Questel.Orbit. Editorial advisory boards of JCICS, Database, CHEMTECH, World Patent Information. Charter member of PIUG, and served as a Trustee of PIUG as well as in other committee positions. Recipient of Herman Skolnik Award from CINF, 1999. Recipient of International Patent Information Award from Technology and Patent Research International, 2001.

William TownBill Town has announced his retirement from ChemWeb effective November 1, 2002. Bill has a doctorate in chemistry from Lancaster University followed by a career involved with software development, database management, new product development, and company development. Prior to ChemWeb, Bill worked for the Cambridge University Crystallographic Data Centre, Hampden Data Services, and Derwent Information among others. His service to CINF includes membership of the Program, Publications, and Awards Committee. He served as Division Chair in 2000. Bill is now President of Kilmorie Consulting in London. He may be reached at bill.town@kilmorie.com. He will be travelling to Botswana for the total eclipse on the sun on December 4th and is also planning a trip to New Zealand in the new year. He plans to get his business plans ready before he leaves so that he can start consulting when

he returns in February. He will be Chair of the CINF Awards Committee in 2003 and plans to be active in the Division after he retires from ChemWeb.

Best wishes on your new endeavor.

New Jobs

Randy Ward is now Chemistry Librarian at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Keith Schreiber is now Information Scientist with Wyeth-Ayerst in Pearl River, New York.

Joseph Clark (CINF Chair in 1992) is Acting Executive Director of the American Chemical Society while John Crum is recovering from heart surgery.