Chemical Abstracts Service

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) is a division of the American Chemical Society. It is a source of chemical information. CAS is located in Columbus, Ohio, United States.

Print periodicals

Chemical Abstracts is a periodical index that provides summaries and indexes of disclosures in recently published scientific documents. Approximately 8,000 journals, technical reports, dissertations, conference proceedings, and new books, in any of 50 languages, are monitored yearly, as are patent specifications from 27 countries and two international organizations. Chemical Abstracts ceased print publication on January 1, 2010.^[1]

Databases

The two principal databases that support the different products are CAplus and Registry.

CAplus

CAplus consists of bibliographic information and abstracts for all articles in chemical journals worldwide, and chemistry-related articles from all scientific journals, patents, and other scientific publications.

Registry

Registry contains information on more than 71 million organic and inorganic substances, and more than 64 million protein and DNA sequences.^[2][3] The sequence information comes from CAS and GenBank, produced by the National Institutes of Health. The chemical information is produced by CAS, and is prepared by the CAS Registry System, which identifies each compound with a specific CAS registry number, index name, and graphic representation of its chemical structure. The assignment of chemical names is done according to the chemical nomenclature rules for CA index names, which is slightly different from the internationally standard IUPAC names, according to the rules of IUPAC.

Products

CAS databases are available via two principal database systems, STN, and SciFinder.

STN

Chemical Abstracts Service Building B in August 2009. Columbus, Ohio

STN (Scientific & Technical Information Network) International is operated jointly^[4] by CAS and FIZ Karlsruhe, and is intended primarily for information professionals, using a command language interface. In addition to CAS databases, STN also provides access to many other databases, similar to Dialog.

SciFinder

SciFinder is a database of chemical and bibliographic information. Originally a client application, a web version was released in 2008.^[5] It has a graphics interface, and can be searched for chemical structures and reactions.

The client version is for chemists in commercial organizations. Versions for both the Windows and Macintosh exist. SciFinder Scholar^[6] is for universities and other academic institutions and lacks some supplementary features for multi-database searching.

CASSI

CASSI stands for Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index. This formerly print-only database is now a free online resource to look up and confirm publication information. CASSI provides titles and abbreviations, CODEN, ISSN, publisher, and date of first issue (history) for a selected journal. Also included is its language of text and language of summaries.^[7]

The range is from 1907 to the present, including both serial and non-serial scientific and technical publications. The database is updated annually every December.^[7][8]

History

Chemical Abstracts (CA) began as a volunteer effort and developed from there. The use of volunteer abstractors was phased out in 1994. Chemical Abstracts has been associated with the American Chemical Society in one way or another since 1907.^[9]

For many years, beginning in 1909, the offices of Chemical Abstracts were housed in various places on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.^[10] In 1965, CAS moved to a new 50-acre (200,000 m²) site on the west bank of the Olentangy River, just north of the Ohio State campus. This campus became well known in the Columbus area and famous as the site of many Columbus Symphony Orchestra pop concerts. In 2009, the campus consisted of three buildings.

In 1907, William A. Noyes had enlarged the Review of American Chemical Research, an abstracting publication begun by Arthur Noyes in 1895 that was the forerunner of Chemical Abstracts. When it became evident that a separate publication containing these abstracts was needed, Noyes became the first editor of the new publication, Chemical Abstracts.

E. J. Crane became the first Director of Chemical Abstracts Service when it became an American Chemical Society division in 1956. Crane had been CA editor since 1915, and his dedication was a key factor in its long-term success.

Dale B. Baker became the CAS Director upon Crane's retirement in 1958. According to CAS, his visionary view of CAS' potential "led to expansion, modernization, and the forging of international alliances with other information organizations."^[11] CAS was an early leader in the use of computer technology to organize and disseminate information.^[12]

The CAS Chemical Registry System was introduced in 1965. CAS developed a unique registry number to identify chemical substances. Agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local fire departments around the world now rely on these numbers for the definite identification of substances. According to the ACS, this is the largest chemical substance database in the world.

In 2007 the ACS designated its Chemical Abstracts Service subdivision an ACS National Historic Chemical Landmark in recognition of its significance as a comprehensive repository of research in chemistry and related sciences.^[13]

See also

• FIZ Karlsruhe
• PubChem
• ChemSpider
• Chemical database
• Beilstein database
• Inorganic Crystal Structure Database

References

External links

• Official website