Dear Colleagues:
Here are few highlights from another successful meeting in Chicago:
1. The Strategic Planning all-day session took place in Chicago on Friday before the conference with the aim of developing CINF's goals for the next 2-3 years. See Jeremy Garritano’s article in this issue of E-News for more details.
2. The Program Committee coordinated a great program - http://acscinf.org/dbx/mtgs/233nm/233cinfsymposia.asp. Check out the amount of collaboration we do with other divisions!
3. The Fundraising committee had a very successful fundraising effort for Chicago meeting which included a reception on Tuesday night with three sponsors. We have not been able to have a reception on Tuesdays in spring meetings for a long time. We also were able to give some travel assistance to more speakers than in the past.
4. MP3 technology was used to record most of the talks and they will be posted on our web site soon.
Now it is time to get ready for Boston meeting in August. CINF has dedicated Saturdays before all national meetings for division business, and I would like to invite you all for a breakfast in Boston, Saturday August 18, 2007 at 7:30 am in the new convention center - http://www.advantageboston.com/BCEC/Default.asp . This is a great way to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Other good ways to hear of division activities are to attend our Long Range Planning meeting after the breakfast or by visiting committee meetings that interest you.
CINF is lucky to have many dedicated volunteers who give so much time and effort to make every national meeting a success and to keep our division innovative and forward-looking. CINF is the place to be!
Erja Kajosalo
Chair, Chemical Information Division
Erja Kajosalo, CINF Chair, greets attendees during the CINF Welcoming Reception.
Reports from the Chicago Meeting
Abstracts of papers presented at the recent Chicago national meeting may be found at http://acscinf.org/dbx/mtgs/233nm/233cinfsymposia.asp Many Powerpoint presentations are provided with express permission granted by the authors who retain the original copyright. These presentations are for information purposes only and cannot be further disseminated without the author's prior written permission.
The draft minutes of the CINF Executive committee meeting held on March 24, 2007 in Chicago, are available at the CINF web site at:
http://acscinf.org/docs/meetings/233nm/minutes/233exec.docSubmitted by Svetlana Korolev, CINF Secretary
CINF Chemical Education Committee Activities
a) The Chemical Education Committee will be teaching a workshop, "CINF, Incorporating chemical information literacy into your curriculum: A workshop for faculty and librarians" at the Boston Meeting! Please consider attending and share this announcement with your faculty.
When: Sunday, August 19, 2007 1 to 5 PM.
Contact: Jeremy Garritano jgarrita@purdue.edu
Description: Designed for faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and librarians. Students need information to understand and solve chemistry and chemical engineering problems. Often they turn to the wrong resources or have not been properly prepared to choose from the many resources available to them. Because certification from the ACS requires instruction in the retrieval and use of chemical information, what can you do to make students more successful in the use of information in the classroom and in the lab? This workshop will provide you with the tools you need to intelligently design assignments that teach chemical and engineering concepts and incorporate chemical information literacy without overwhelming the student or yourself. Workshop fee: $125.
b) Please join us at the Boston Meeting of the Chemical Information Education Round Table.
When: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 2 - 5 pm
Contact: Sue Cardinal scardinal@library.rochester.edu or Andrea Twiss-Brooks atbrooks@uchicago.edu
Description: Scientific and chemical information literacy education is a topic of keen interest among chemistry instructors and as well as in the science library community. A panel of chemistry faculty and librarians representing different sizes of colleges and universities will share their experiences in chemical information education. Topics covered by panelists will include challenges of teaching interdisciplinary classes (e.g., biology-chemistry interface, materials science, etc.), teaching chemical information with limited library/institutional resources, and successful teaching collaborations between librarians and faculty. Plenty of time will be reserved for discussion so that these issues and related ones may be deeply explored.
c) Clearinghouse for Chemical Information Instructional Materials
We are collaborating with the ACS Web Presence Team and possibly the Journal of Chemical Education folks to update the Clearinghouse for Chemical Information Instructional Materials. Our first training module "Affordable Sources for Property Data" is published. Many more are being developed. See: http://www.acscinf.org/html/educ.html
Please send questions or comments about the Education Committee to Co-Chairs Song Yusy2133@columbia.edu or Sue scardinal@library.rochester.edu
Submitted by Sue Cardinal
CINF Webcasting Project Report
The Division of Chemical Information is reaching out to its membership and the chemical information community, bringing recent technical session content from the ACS National Meetings to the desktop in a more "life-like" manner. CINF is providing webcasts of technical session content from 2007 ACS National Meetings. The Division received an Innovative Project Grant from the ACS Divisional Activities Committee to fund the purchase of digital audio recording equipment and additional file server space to house the MP3 files, as well as associated PDF, PowerPoint and even a couple of video files provided by the speakers in technical session programs. The current project builds on a pilot project in 2006, when the speakers from a few selected CINF symposia were recorded.
Many CINF speakers gave their permission to be recorded. Some talks are already available in the meeting area on the CINF website. For those wishing to listen and view the available audio and slide presentations from the Chicago meeting, you will have two options. One option is to view an HTML version that has synchronized audio and slide transitions. This option requires allowing ActiveX controls on your computer, which may provide barriers to some users. Since the synchronization process is time-intensive, this option will not be immediately available for all talks, but we will add the capability to additional talks as the process is completed. The other option is to view the PDF or PowerPoint slide files and use manual controls to click through the slides in one window, while listening to the MP3 file using an MP3 player program (e.g. iTunes) in another window. The audio files are quite large, so please be a bit patient while loading either the MP3 or HTML files.
To find the presentations, go to http://www.acscinf.org/ and click on the "Meetings" button. Then look for the Chicago meeting (#233) and click on "Technical Sessions". The talks with available content will have MP3, PPT, PDF and/or HTML links in the left column, indicating which files are available for the particular presentations. We will continue to load content as it is received and processed.
Submitted by Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Strategic Planning: An Update and Our New Vision and Goals for 2007-2009
This is a follow-up to the CINF Strategic Planning article that was published in the Fall 2006 CINF E-News. (http://acscinf.org/docs/publications/enews/0801/0801.pdf)
A group of ten CINF members representing academia, consulting, for-profit, and non-for-profit, was selected to help draft a vision and strategic plan for the Chemical Information Division. This small group met in Chicago for an all-day session the Friday before the Spring ACS Meeting and was efficiently facilitated by Dale Gaddy and Ena Castro of the ACS Division of Membership and Scientific Advancement.
Facilitators and participants worked very hard throughout the day using feedback from various venues. First we were given a review about the purpose of Technical Divisions within ACS and then discussed the current state of the Division of Chemical Information compared to other Divisions. Membership numbers, financial statistics, and demographics were all used to create a baseline for discussing a new strategic plan.
Working in groups of three to four, we performed a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis on the Division using information from the various phone interviews conducted by the CINF Strategic Planning Implementation Team and the online survey that was distributed to the CHMINF-L listserv. We attempted to pull together related themes and concerns and group them into similar categories.
Next, based on the SWOT analysis, we brainstormed ideas about where we would like the Division to be in three years. We considered the types of programs, products, and services we would like to offer by 2009.
From there we identified a number of possible goals for the Division to work toward in order to reach this future state in the next three years. We also discussed potential barriers to these goals. As a group, we then prioritized the goals and narrowed the list to three goals we would like to see CINF pursue. Each group then took one goal and created possible action items for their assigned goal. While goals are more abstract, action items are the tangible actions the Division must accomplish to further the particular goal. While not binding, these action items will help the Executive Committee understand what might be involved in order to accomplish these goals. Once the goals had been fleshed out and stated to the group’s satisfaction, we were able to draft a vision statement based on these new goals and our existing mission statement.
At the end of April 2007, the CINF Executive Committee enthusiastically approved the Strategic Plan’s draft vision statement with slight modification and the three goals as is. The plan is to complete the goals over the next two and half years, 2007- 2009.
Vision
Become a more valuable and valued Division by strengthening ties with chemical and information communities and increase participation through use of new technology and interactive environments.
Goals
Goal #1: Expand multi-disciplinary collaboration and outreach within ACS and with related organizations in order to connect globally and share knowledge.
Goal #2: Create and sustain a virtual interactive environment to increase member participation in the Division's programs, products, activities, and services.
Goal #3: Develop programs, products, activities, and/or services that advance the professional development of individual members.
To accomplish these goals by the end of 2009, three short-term task forces will be formed to tackle each goal. These “goal” task forces will be charged with creating action items and detailed steps for each action item for achieving the goals. In addition to these task forces, a task force for division identity/branding will also be formed to discuss what distinguishes CINF from other divisions (e.g. COMP/CHED/etc.) and will be charged to create a new mission statement for us. All task forces are expected to report at the Boston meeting.
Soon we will be looking for enthusiastic volunteers for each task force who want to help move CINF into an even more productive and engaging future. Stay tuned for more details via the CHMINF-L listserv.
Thank you to the CINF Strategic Planning Implementation Team: Jeremy Garritano (Purdue University), Erja Kajosalo (MIT), Mitch Miller (Symyx), and Pamela Scott (Pfizer).
Submitted by: Jeremy Garritano
Harry Allcock FIZ Chemie Berlin are now hosting "Harry's bar" which was previously hosted for many years by Harry Allcock for IFI.
Peter Loew and Bob Buntrock
Phil McHale and Valentina Eigner-Pitto
Bill Towne, David Johnson and Wendy Warr
Thomas Krimmer and Carmen Nitsche Return to the Top
The Council of the American Chemical Society met on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 in the Sheraton Chicago Ballroom of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers. The meeting opened at 8:00 am with a resolution and moment of silence honoring recently deceased ACS Past Presidents, Robert W. Parry (1982) and Fred Basolo (1983) and three deceased Councilors.
Total registration at the Chicago meeting was 14,520. This number includes 7,152 regular attendees, 5,059 student affiliates, 1,283 exhibitors (representing companies with 424 booths), 573 exposition only attendees, 453 guests, and 119 high school teachers. The total attendance was about 1,000 less than for the 2006 Spring meeting in Atlanta. It was noted that a record number (1,264) of undergraduate and Student Affiliates Chapter posters were presented at this meeting.
Committee on Meetings and Expositions
The Committee on Meetings and Expositions (M&E) recommended, and Council voted to approve the dates and sites for the 2017 national meetings as follows: April 2-6, San Francisco, California; and September 10-14, St. Louis, Missouri. M&E also reported that in 2006 the ACS Regional Meetings set a new standard for excellence. There were 4,717 abstracts and the attendance figure was 8,000 - a 30% increase over 2005. M&E plans to make the ACS meetings “greener,” and will be communicating with ACS staff and governance on long and short term actions related to this goal. ACS and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will be holding their 2008 Spring meetings in New Orleans next April. An ad hoc working group consisting of members of DAC, M&E and AIChE are actively exploring joint programming opportunities.
Committee on Science Program Themes for 2008
The Committee on Science is planning two events for 2008. The first, “Balancing Security and Openness,” will gather data to determine if the recent emphasis on security is hindering scientific progress. The second event, “Transitioning Chemical Science to Commercially Successful Products,” has the goal of evaluating the current infrastructure and making recommendations to shorten and straighten the road along which basic chemical science research travels to reach market success.
The Committee on Nominations & Elections identified four nominees for the office of 2008 ACS President-Elect: Pat N. Confalone, Thomas H. Lane, William A. Nugent, and Howard M. Peters. Council voted and elected Thomas Lane and Howard Peters as the two candidates who will run for office in the Fall of 2007. Peters is one of the founders of the ACS Division of Chemistry and the Law – a division that began as a subdivision of CINF – and he and his wife Sally are active CINF supporters.
Candidates for the ACS Board of Directors
Candidates for the 2008 – 2010 Director-at-Large positions are: Janan Hayes, Bonnie Lawlor, Kent Voorhees and Frankie Wood-Black. Candidates from District II are Joseph Peterson and Diane Grob Smith and from District IV are Eric Bigham and Gregory Robinson. All of the Director elections will take place in the Fall of 2007.
The Committee on Divisional Activities (DAC) reported it will make a recommendation to Council at the Boston meeting to revise the formula for funding of Divisions. The revisions will more greatly reward interdisciplinary programming and will result in a simpler, more transparent formula. DAC encourages divisions to consider extending the reach of the content they deliver at national meetings through Internet-based distribution channels and will support worthy efforts in this direction via innovative program grants.
DAC also reported that it will transfer the process of choosing and organizing themes for future ACS meetings to a new group that will represent all Divisions. Meetings were held in Chicago to accelerate the transfer and to choose themes for the 2008 meeting that will be held in Philadelphia. It was noted that all of the Divisions and one Secretariat had submitted their annual reports on time. Recipients of the 2006 ChemLuminary Awards have been selected and will be announced at the Boston meeting.
2006 ACS Positive Financial Results
The Society ended 2006 with a net of $12 million from operations. This was a $7.8 million favorable variance from the budget and all Board financial guidelines were met. The positive result is primarily due to the very strong performances of Chemical Abstracts Services and the Publishing Division – their combined revenue was $43 million – to investment revenue of $8.3 million and net dues revenue of $5.1 million. Cost savings from lower-than-budgeted health care costs and reduced IT spending also contributed to the positive variance.
ACS Web Improvements Due for Completion in September
The new ACS web site will be launched in September 2007. The theme for version 1.0 is “findability.” The site will have a unifying global navigation and provide a dramatically improved user experience. It will group information into 10 main categories: Publications, Members and Networks, Careers, Meetings, Science Policy, Education, Funding and Awards, About ACS, Newsroom, and Support. The plans for version 2.0 are in the preliminary stages. If anyone has questions about Web Presence or would like to participate in a future user test or focus group, send an e-mail with your contact information to: webpresence@acs.org.
New ACS Business Venture - ChemInsight
It was reported that ACS launched at the Chicago meeting a new “ACS Expert Services” business venture entitled ChemInsight. This venture was developed in response to the growing demand for scientific experts in the legal, accounting and consulting fields. It will allow members and other scientists in chemical and related fields to earn additional income and solve challenging problems in a new context. For more information, or to register your services, go to: www.ChemInsight.org.
2008 Membership Dues Increase
The Society Committee on Budget and Finance recommended, and Council voted to approve, that the 2008 dues be set at the fully escalated rate of $136 (a four dollar increase over 2007).
Dues increases are dictated by the ACS Constitution and Bylaws. The increases are based upon an escalator defined in the ACS Bylaws (Bylaw XII, Section 3,a). The dues are calculated by multiplying the base (current) rate “by a factor which is the ratio of the revised Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (Service Category) for the second year previous to the dues year to the value of the index for the third year previous to the dues year, as published by the United States Department of Labor, with the fractional dollar amounts rounded to the nearest whole dollar”.
Base rate 2007: $132.00
Change in the Consumer Price Index, Urban Wage Earners, Services Category:
2006 CPI-W Services: 236.6
2005 CPI-W Services: 229.2
Change in CPI-W Index: 3.23%
2008 Dues, fully escalated: $132.00 x 1.0323 = $136.26
2008 Dues, Rounded: $136.00
Committee Continuance Approved
After completion of the regular performance reviews, the Committee on Committees (ConC) recommended, and Council approved, that the following three Committees be permitted to continue: Younger Chemists, Women Chemists, and the Committee on Science. ConC is developing its recommendations for 2008 committee appointments and Committee preference forms for this purpose will be sent to all Councilors and Alternate Councilors no later than May 2007.
Chemical Abstracts Service is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year. The first issue of CAS appeared in January 1907. During its first year, CA contained fewer that 12,000 abstracts. In 2006, CA published one million abstracts. CAS databases today contain more than 27 million records of journals and patent literature and more that 170 million citations. The CAS Registry has more than 30 million substance records, 1.5 billion predicted and experimental properties and some 12 million reactions.
Local Section Activities - Anniversaries and New Section Created
The Local Section Activities Committee (LSAC) recognized five local sections that are celebrating significant anniversaries in 2007: Savannah River – 50 years; the Northeast Tennessee section, 75 years; and the St. Louis, Syracuse and Wisconsin sections, 100 years.
A legal petition had been submitted for the formation of a new local section to be known as the Snake River Section, with headquarters in Boise, ID. The territory consists of the following Idaho counties: Ada, Canyon, Custer, Owhyee, Boise, Elmore, Gem, Gooding, Jerome, Twin Falls, Payette and Maleheur county (Oregon). All counties mentioned in this petition are not currently assigned to an ACS Local Section and 101 members are residents. The petition was signed by 52 members in good standing who reside in the proposed territory. There was one dissenting vote. The adjacent section, the Idaho Local Section, was contacted and has expressed no opinion regarding the formation of the Snake River Section. LSAC recommended, and Council approved, the creation of this new section.
Membership Increases
ACS closed 2006 with 160,491 members – the highest year-end membership total since 2002. Of the 17,857 applications processed in 2006, more than 1,000 came from the Member-Get-A-Member Campaign. Membership retention remained strong at 92%.
Bylaw Changes for Action by Council
The Council received three amendments to the ACS Bylaws (Petitions) for action: 1) the Petition on Election Procedures 2006, 2) the Petition on Rules for Nominating Members of N&E for National Offices, and 3) the Petition on Multi-Year Dues.
Petition #1: Change of Date for Run-off elections – approved
The first petition was the most controversial and resulted in the most discussion (refer to Bylaw V, Section 2 -Manner of Election). The committee on Nominations and Elections (N&E) recommended that the petition candidate process and the election process for President-elect and all Director positions be brought into alignment. An absolute number (300) is used as the signature requirement for petition candidates for President-Elect and Directors-at-Large, but a percentage (1% of the District membership) is used for District Directors. Because the membership of the Society changes, N&E believes that it is more logical to use a percentage rather than have to adjust the Bylaws on a periodic basis. The proposed change requires a 1% requirement for President-elect and a 0.5% requirement for Director-At-Large. The net effect under the current membership will be to increase the signature requirement from 300 to 1,500 for President-Elect and from 300 to 750 for each of the Director-at-Large positions. In a recent survey of Councilors and non-Councilors, 71% favored an increase in the number of signatures.
The second proposed change in the election process would remove from the Bylaws a rigid date (November 15) that determines the timeline for run-off elections and replace it with a more flexible time frame (“…no later than four weeks after the first election results have been certified and in no event later than December 15th.”). The Committee on Budget and Finance believes that the above change in the Bylaws will have a minor negative impact of the Society’s finances ($0 - $100,000).
Before the battle lines could be drawn, an amendment was put forth to split the two pieces for voting purposes – the petition signatures and the date change. This amendment was approved and Council did vote to approve the removal of the date for a more flexible timeline.
Ammendment: Change in Number of Signatures Required for Petition Candidates – returned to Committee
Then another amendment was put forth to send the change to the number of signatures required for petition candidates back to the Committee on Nomination and Elections (N&E) for reconsideration. The general opinion was that 1,500 is too high. Also, it was requested that N&E come back with a complete package that would 1) address the issue of the procedures required for the gathering and approval of electronic signatures on the petitions; 2) address how petition candidates will be handled with regard to the policy of alternating academic and corporate candidates for President-elect; and 3) address suggestions arising from the Governance Review Task Force pertinent to election procedures. Council approved the motion.
Petition #2: Waiting Period Prior to Running for National Office for Members of Nominations and Elections - not approved
This amendment to Bylaw III, Sec. 3b, (1), (b) was put forth to ensure that leadership (all Director positions and Presidential positions) in the Society is not being held within a closed circle. It would ensure that slates developed by N&E will not include current members of the Committee as well as former members unless at least one year has passed since the time that a former member has left N&E. There was both considerable support and opposition to this petition (N&E was opposed to it). After much discussion, a Councilor requested that a recorded vote be taken. A 3/10th positive vote of Council is needed to approve such a request and approval was granted. A recorded vote requires that each Councilor sign their name to a card, vote for/against or abstain, with the results being published in C&EN, listing each Councilor and how they voted. The net result of the recorded vote was 151 in favor, 254 opposed and 15 abstentions.
Petition #3: Multi-Year Dues Payment - approved
Council approved the petition to allow members paying full dues the option of paying ACS membership dues at the most current rate for two or three years. There will be no refund once paid. Dues for Local Sections and Divisions will also be able to be collected for two or three years at the most current rate. If any Division or Local Section wishes to raise its rates and pass those increases on to those who pre-paid, they may do so, but will have to do the billing and collecting themselves.
If multi-year subscriptions to CAS and ACS journals are not offered, the cost of billing multi-year members in years in which they do not owe Society dues should become the responsibility of CAS and the Publications Division.
The Committee on Constitution and Bylaws found that the financial impact of this petition will have a minor negative impact of the Society’s finances ($0 - $100,000).
Bylaw for Consideration Only
One Bylaw change was included in the Agenda book for consideration only. Action will be scheduled for Boston. The petition will give the Local Section Activities Committee formal authority to approve affiliations between Local Sections and other technical associations similar to what the Bylaws currently dictate for Divisions (the Committee on Divisional Activities must approve affiliations between Divisions and other technical associations).
The financial impact of this petition has not yet been completely assessed. The Committee on Constitution and Bylaws found the petition legal and consistent with other provisions of the Society’s documents
Committee on Nominations and Elections
The Committee on Nominations and Elections (N&E) reported that they have developed protocols to be used by Local Sections and Divisions for Internet elections.
The information will be sent to the appropriate ACS committees for their review and distribution. The protocols assume that the Divisions and Local Sections have
revised their Bylaws to allow for electronic ballots. N&E is responsible for annually reviewing the distribution of member populations within the six electoral districts
to ensure that the districts have equitable representation on Council. According to Bylaw V, Section 4(a), the member population of each electoral district must be
within ten percent of the result of dividing by six the number of members whose addresses lie within these districts. As of the most recent review, all six electoral
districts have been found to be in compliance. N&E has determined that original or electronic signatures are acceptable on petitions for candidates for President-Elect
and Director positions and will establish appropriate procedures for receipt of electronic signatures. N&E will also sponsor on-line forums for input from Councilors
and other interested members on issues related to nominations and elections between now and the Boston meeting.The Council received a report on the recent activities of the Governance Review Task Force. Councilors were informed that since the last Council meeting, the task force has met twice and action teams have been actively addressing those areas under the “Advance” category. Councilors also learned that the Council Policy Committee and the Board of Directors VOTED, as recommended by the Governance Review Task Force, to accept four recommendations under the “Refine” category.
 | The number of Councilors will not be reduced as the data reviewed does not suggest that any action is required. |
| Appoint more non-Councilors to committees. No action is required as this issue is already being addressed by the Committee on Committees (ConC). |
| Term limits for ACS Councilors will not be imposed as the data suggests that no action is required. |
| The roles of committees will be clarified in order to eliminate redundancy, maximize the policy role, and improve the effectiveness of committee oversight for programs. Different models for the committee structure will be explored. The Committee on Chemical Abstracts Service and Committee on Publications will be reviewed and revitalized in order to increase member involvement and communication with the membership at large. |
Actions of the Board of Directors
The Board’s Standing Committees
The Board of Directors received a report on the screened list of candidates from the Committee on Grants and Awards for the 2008 Priestley Medal and the Volunteer Service Award. The Board will announce the winners of these two awards after its June meeting. The Board also VOTED to approve a new award: the ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry, and an endowment to support the award sponsored by the Rohm and Haas Company. The Committee on Grants and Award concluded its report with an update from the PRF Steering Committee.
The Board received a report on the activities of the Committee on Public Affairs and Public Relations where they were informed of its actions at this meeting and recent governance advocacy activities since the committee’s last meeting in December.
Activities of the Board’s Task Forces and Working Groups
The Board of Directors received status reports from several of its task forces and working groups namely: the Governance Review Task Force, the International Strategy Advisory Group, Percy Julian Task Force, the Board Oversight Group on Leadership Development, the working group on 2007 Board Goals and the working group charged with planning the Board’s retreat. The Board VOTED, on the recommendation of the Governance Review Task Force, to accept four recommendations under the “Refine” category. The Board also expressed its appreciation to the Percy Julian Task Force for its outstanding work and presented its members with plaques of the US House of Representative Resolution (February 2007) honoring the life and contributions of Dr. Julian.
Recognition of Chemical Society Milestone Anniversaries
The Board approved resolutions recognizing the 100th anniversary of the Hungarian Chemical Society and the 150th anniversary of the French Chemical Society. The French Chemical Society’s anniversary will be celebrated in connection with its national meeting and the “C6” meeting, a summit of six large international chemical societies, in July. The Hungarian Chemical Society will celebrate its anniversary in June.
The Review and Approval of Two Policies
The Board reviewed and approved a statement on scholarship as presented by the Committee on Education, and a series of policies for the acceptance of gifts as supported by the Task Force on Development Activities.
Compensation of Society Staff
On the recommendation of the Committee on Executive Compensation, the Board VOTED to approve several actions relative to compensation for the Society’s executive staff. The compensation of the Society’s executive staff receives regular review from the Board.
The Executive Director/CEO Report
The Executive Director/CEO led a discussion on challenges facing the ACS, 2007-2011, including demographic/disciplinary, international, workforce readiness & science competitiveness, knowledge transfer and governance reform, and on priority recommendations for addressing those challenges. She also, along with several of her direct reports, updated the Board on the following issues: the impact of evolving information and communication technologies and trends on the Society, the Web Presence initiative, the ACS Green Chemistry Institute, and the activities of Chemical Abstracts Service, the Publications Division, and the Society’s General Counsel.
Respectfully Submitted,
Bonnie Lawlor, CINF Councilor 2007 - 2009 and Andrea Twiss-Brooks, CINF Councilor 2005- 2007
Bill Town and David Martinsen – relaxing at Friday’s dinner
Erja and Grace taking time to relax!
Ann Pennell Moffet Gallucio
The Chemical and Engineering News of April 16, 2007 (page 58-59) reported the passing of Ann P. Gallucio (formerly Ann P. Moffett). Ann was Treasurer of CINF (1981-84) and Chair (1986). She published the first issue of the CINF Newsletter which became the CINF E-News.
Submitted by Bruce Slutsky
2007 CINF Meritorious Award Winner: Andrea Twiss-Brooks!
On behalf of the Awards Committee of the Division of Chemical Information (CINF) of ACS it gives me great pleasure to congratulate Andrea Twiss-Brooks as the recipient of the prestigious CINF Meritorious Service Award. The award is given to members who made outstanding contributions to the division. This is only the sixth time this award has been given in the history of the division. The announcement was made at the Executive Committee meeting at the Spring ACS meeting in Chicago. The award will be presented to Andrea at the divisional luncheon at the 334th National ACS Meeting in Boston, Atlanta.
Andrea has a long and impressive track record with the Division and ACS; she is a very hard worker, always facing problems head on looking for practical solutions. In all of her efforts, she is tenacious in following through, open to new ideas, a strong listener, and someone with an infectious sense of humor.
Andrea is also known to take on more than one thing, always with great enthusiasm and professionalism. She established the CINF web site (one of the first ACS divisions to have a web presence) and hosted it at the University of Chicago. During her long tenure as CINF’s web diva (1995-2004) she was CINF Chair (2001) and the sole member of the Committee on Bylaws and Procedures (2002-2006). She represented the division as Alternate Councilor (2003-2005) and now is the division’s Councilor (2006-2008). She was a member of the CINF Education Committee and currently is a member of the CINF Programming (2006-2008) and Awards Committees (2007-2009). Over the years she organized or co-led several sessions and spoke regularly at ACS symposia. Recently, she spearheaded the effort to podcast CINF sessions.
Andrea is also very active in the Society. For the past three years, she was the Chair of the Joint-Board Council Committee for Chemical Abstracts. She is still a member of this committee. She is also on the Library Advisory Committee for ACS Publications, a member of the CAS Academic Advisory Committee, and a member of ACS’ Committee on Community Activities.
Andrea’s sustained and varied contributions and strong commitment to CINF and her enthusiasm and sense of humor benefit all of us.
Guenter Grethe
CINF Awards Chair
Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Patterson-Crane Award Winner Announced
Dr. Gary D. Wiggins, Director, Program in Chemical Informatics, School of Informatics, Indiana University, is the 2007 recipient of the Patterson-Crane Award presented biennially by the Dayton and Columbus Sections of the American Chemical Society. The Award, given in honor of two previous editors of CAS, Austin M. Patterson and E. J. Crane, recognizes outstanding contributions in chemical information theory or practice.
The Award will be presented in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, at a dinner to be held at Holiday Inn on the Lane.
The Award recognizes Dr. Wiggins as one of the earliest librarians to foresee and adopt the many intensive technological innovations that were occurring in chemical information during the time that he was head of the Indiana University Chemistry Library from 1976 to 2003. His work ensured that the IU Chemistry Library has one of the finest collections of print and electronic materials available in any academic library. He championed the adoption of electronic forms of chemical information communication far beyond the Indiana borders.
One of Dr. Wiggins’ most enduring legacies is the many students that have completed the Chemical Information Specialist Program under his mentorship and who now hold positions in all areas of chemical, pharmaceutical, and patent information across corporate, academic, government, and non-profit sectors. Dr. Wiggins has recently created two new Master’s programs in bioinformatics and chemical informatics in the School of Informatics at Indiana University. In 2005, he and others at IU received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish an exploratory center for chemical informatics research.
When the Internet became available for general use, Dr. Wiggins was able to make the IU instructional materials and guides prepared in the IU Chemistry Library available to other institutions. He popularized the Web to many chemists and librarians through his “Some Chemistry Resources on the Internet”, his lectures on that topic, and his Web guide to Internet Resources. Additionally, his book Chemical Information Sources published in 1991 was used as a textbook in many locations.
For many professionals in chemical information, Dr. Wiggins is probably best known for his development of the online networking service begun in 1991 called the Chemical Information Sources Discussion List (CHMINF-L), which today has over 1,400 subscribers worldwide. Through this service, he was also able to introduce subscribers to many chemical information sources on the internet. Dr. Wiggins has continually managed to update this service to take advantage of new developments in technology.
Dr. Gary Wiggins is most deserving of this award. For further information on the award presentation or reservations, contact Dr. Theresa Huston at thuston@cas.org or (614)447-3600 ext. 3354.
The Gary Award: F. Bartow Culp presents Gary Wiggins with the "Gary award" during the symposium held in Gary's honor during the ACS Meeting in Chicago.
Elsevier MDL CINF Scholarships for Scientific Excellence
The winners of the Elsevier MDL CINF Scholarships for Scientific Excellence were presented with their awards at the CINF luncheon.
CINF Luncheon - student award winners: Huijun Wang (Indiana University), Guenter Grethe (Awards Committee Chair), Barun Bhhatarai (Clarkson University), Xiao Dong (Indiana University), Phil McHale (Elsevier-MDL Scholarship Sponsor), Raghava C. Kasara (Clarkson University), Sebastian Rohrer (Technical University of Braunschweig)
CINF Luncheon award presentation: Phil McHale, Elsevier-MDL, presents a CINF-Elsevier MDL Academic Scientific Excellence Medal to Raghava C. Kasara of Clarkson University.
Barun Bhhatarai, Department of Chemistry, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699: A novel cheminformatics study of non-peptidic HIV protease inhibitors using machine learning and statistical tools
Raghava Chaitanya Kasara, Department of Chemistry, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699: Pharmacokinetic Modeling of Anti-HIV Protease Ritonavir Analogues
Sebastian Rohrer, Institute of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Technical University of Braunschweig, 38106 Braunschweig Germany: Understanding the effect of benchmark dataset composition on the validation and optimization of ligand based virtual screening using self-organizing maps
Xiao Dong, School of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47408: Developing Semantic Web Service for Chemical Informatics
Huijun Wang, School of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47408: Data Mining of NIH DTP Human Tumor Cell Line Screen Data for Anticancer Drug Discovery
Each of the recipients presented a poster at the SciMix gathering at the ACS National Meeting in Chicago on Monday March 26, and each was recognized and awarded a $1000 scholarship at the ACS Division of Chemical Information luncheon at the same meeting on Tuesday March 30. Phil McHale made the awards, accompanied by Guenter Grethe, CINF Awards Chair.
Robert S. Pearlman, the Coulter R. Sublett Regents Chair in Pharmacy and Director of the Laboratory for the Development of Computer-Assisted Drug Discovery Software at the University of Texas at Austin, is named as the 2007 Herman Skolnik Award winner. This award is given by the Chemical Information Division of the American Chemical Society in recognition of outstanding contributions to and achievements in the theory and practice of chemical information science. The award ceremony will be held at the American Chemical Society National Meeting at Boston in September of 2007. Please see http://acscinf.org/docs/awards/skolnik/2007.htm for more information about Dr. Pearlman. Information on the Skolnik and other CINF awards can be found at http://www.acscinf.org/html/awards.html
Dr. Robert S. Pearlman
Ted Smith from the US EPA presenting his well-received talk at the CINF Luncheon.
Lisa M. Balbes. 2006. Oxford University Press. ISBN10: 0195183665 (paper)
There have been a number of reviews of this excellent book so I’ll just hit the highlights. This item is unique not only in its focus but also because it provides “profiles” of people who moved from the lab into the featured careers. Examples of careers discussed are chemistry and information science, chemistry and public policy, and chemistry and people. The profiles include four well-known CINF members: Osman Guner, Patricia Kirkwood, Bonnie Lawlor and Val Metanomski.
As well as discussing career options, Balbes urges readers to plan their education and career path effectively, and provides tips and tricks to accomplish this. She emphasizes the overlap among jobs and the confusion caused by the wide variety of job titles for similar positions. Readers are strongly encouraged to fully explore the job duties and use the proper terminology when applying for positions.
Each chapter deals with a nontraditional career. Additional resources are included and these can take the form of books, web sites, blogs, job boards, relevant societies, or journal articles. Profiles include current job description and duties, the career path, advice for the career path, and predictions for the future of the career. The number of profiles included for each chapter vary from a high of 6 to a low of 3 with an average of 4. My sole suggestion for improvement would be to have the profiles listed as subcomponents in the table of contents to allow readers to glance through and easily locate names of people, companies or job titles that interest them.
Nontraditional Careers for Chemists is a well-written, easy to read and engrossing book which should appeal to readers seeking information on potential careers. Balbes relates the reader's chemistry training to career path development: analyze your experiences and find the solutions that will provide a lucrative and rewarding job that feeds your passion.
Additional information can be found from the Oxford University Press' web site http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Chemistry/~~/dmlldz11c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5NTE4MzY3Mg==
Submitted by Beth Thomsett-Scott.
The Chemical Structure Association (CSA) Trust is an internationally recognized organization established to promote the critical importance of chemical information to advances in chemical research. In support of its charter, the Trust has created a unique Grant Program, renamed in honor of Professor Jacques-Émile Dubois who made significant contributions to the field of cheminformatics. The Trust is currently inviting the submission of grant applications for 2008.
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. A Grant will be awarded annually up to a maximum of three thousand U.S. dollars ($3,000). Grants are awarded for specific purposes, and within one year each grantee is required to submit a brief written report detailing how the grant funds were allocated.
Who is Eligible?
Applicant(s), age 35 or younger, who have demonstrated excellence in their chemical information related research and who are developing careers that have the potential to have a positive impact on the utility of chemical information relevant to chemical structures, reactions and compounds, are invited to submit applications. While the primary focus of the Grant Program is the career development of young researchers, additional bursaries may be made available at the discretion of the Trust. All requests must follow the application procedures noted below and will be weighed against the same criteria.
What Activities are Eligible?
Grants may be awarded to acquire the tools necessary to support research activities, or for travel to collaborate with research groups, to attend a conference relevant to one’s area of research, to gain access to special computational facilities, or to acquire unique research techniques in support of one’s research.
Application Requirements:
Applications must include the following documentation:
1. A letter that details the work upon which the Grant application is to be evaluated as well as details on research recently completed by the applicant;
2. The amount of Grant funds being requested and the details regarding the purpose for which the Grant will be used (e.g. cost of equipment, travel expenses if the request is for financial support of meeting attendance, etc.). The relevance of the above-stated purpose to the Trust’s objectives and the clarity of this statement are essential in the evaluation of the application);
3. A brief biographical sketch, including a statement of academic qualifications;
4. Two reference letters in support of the application. Additional materials may be supplied at the discretion of the applicant only if relevant to the application and if such materials provide information not already included in items 1-4. Three copies of the complete application document must be supplied for distribution to the Grants Committee.
Deadline for Applications:
Applications must be received no later than October 19, 2007. Successful applicants will be notified by December 21, 2007.
Address for Submission of Applications:
Four 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 blawlor@nfais.org or chescot@aol.com.
The Chemical Structure Association Trust has published its winter Newsletter, which is freely available to all at http://csa-trust.org under Newsletter. In addition to details about Trust activities, there are announcements of Award winners, several conference reports, recent product news, forthcoming events, etc. This lively Newsletter is published 3 times a year, and welcomes contributions at any time. A CSA Trust Grant for 2007 has been awarded to Rajarshi Guha of Indiana University, to enable him to attend the Gordon Research Conference on Computer Aided Design in August 2007. The Grants, in honour of the late Jacques-Emile Dubois, are awarded annually for the career development of young researchers.
2006 TriSociety Symposium: Liaison Report
The TriSociety Symposium on Chemical Information was established in 1970s to promote collaboration among ACS/CINF, the SLA/Chemistry Division http://units.sla.org/division/dche/index.htm and ASIS&T/STI SIG http://www.asis.org/SIG/sti.html. The 8th quadrennial TriSociety Symposium theme was “Shaping Things to Come” https://www.asis.org/Conferences/Daser/index.htm. It was hosted by the ASIS&T Scientific and Technical Information Science special interest group (STI SIG) and held in Austin, TX as a pre-conference of the ASIS&T Annual Meeting. The morning session with four invited speakers started this excellent TriSociety Symposium. These speakers covered topics like physical transformation of library space, new technologies in libraries, changing nature of scientific information, and the impact on libraries and changing habits and needs of information users. Fred Heath from University of Texas described the decision process of closing an undergraduate library in order to re-purpose the space for a 24x7 Digital Learning Commons - http://www.utexas.edu/computer/fac/ . Carole Palmer, Associate Professor from University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign GSLIS discussed how scientists’ and engineers’ information habits and needs have changed. Her research group’s studies suggest that the researchers are exposed to more articles and have easier access to them, but it does not necessarily mean that they read more. Also, researchers develop their own digital resources for the use of their research group. These tools include data repositories, “collaboratories”, and mining, analysis and visualization tools. Danielle Plumer, a faculty member at the University of Texas @ Austin School of Information spoke about the impact of new technologies in libraries. She discussed results of two different recent studies on disruptive technologies. According to her, the Pew Internet study “Future of the Internet II” http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/188/report_display.asp shows six themes: global networking; fate of language online; human control over technology; transparency vs. privacy; virtual reality; and laggards & refusineks. The Institute for the Future/IEEE Spectrum study 2006 Ten-Year Forecast: Perspectives http://www.iftf.org/docs/TYF_06_intro.pdf reveals five themes: computation and band width burn; sensory transformation, light weight infrastructure, small world (nanotechnology, micro-robotics); and extending biology (genetic modifications/prostheses).
The last morning speaker was Jack Maness, Engineering Librarian from the University of Colorado @ Boulder Engineering Library. He discussed use of social networking and social communication technologies (IM, blogs, wikis, etc) for library services. He suggested that we need to use social software to create a social presence in web-based libraries, which would lead to a better library. As example of this type of social presence, he used the OPAC social networking site which will allow, based on a 2006 public draft, users to create communities of discovery and create participatory networks. As another possible example, he mentioned “systems” reference where librarians would “lurk” to see when the user might need reference help.
The members of the afternoon “panel of visionaries” were asked to imagine libraries in fifty years, 2047. This panel included Michael Leach from Harvard Libraries and current president of ASIST, David Flaxbart, Chemistry librarian from University of Texas, and Martha Bedard, Associate Dean of Libraries & Director, Medical Sciences Library, Texas A&M University. Michael Leach argued that outsourcing in STM libraries will expand beyond what is currently outsourced: serial records, approval plans, OPACs, etc. He claims that academic libraries are now where corporate libraries were ten years ago, and that in future, academic libraries will need more specialized staff and all general library services will be outsourced. Martha Bedard described how some medical libraries have closed all their subject funds, and the funds are spent on users requests. In her vision of future, libraries still provide services, spaces, and create their priorities, but the type services and use of spaces will change dramatically, and libraries will be highly integrated in the institutions they serve. David Flaxart defended the importance of branch libraries even in the future. According to him, the libraries will become more document service centers without stacks. This means that “open” stacks have reached their peak and the serendipity factor will be lost, because document delivery is similar to “closed” stacks from user’s point of view.
During the Q&A session topics like ebooks, wikipedias’ impact on ebook publishing, open access, data curation, and institutional repositories were eagerly discussed.
By the way, CINF will be the host of next TriSociety Symposium in 2010!
Submitted by Erja Kajosalo
Bio-Rad Launches "Knowitall U" Spectroscopy Reference Database and Software Product for Academic Research and Teaching
PHILADELPHIA, PA – March 30, 2007 – Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (AMEX: BIO and BIOb), a multinational manufacturer and distributor of life science research and
clinical diagnostics products, today announced the launch of a new spectroscopy reference database and software product, KnowItAll® U, for academic research and teaching. The new product represents a powerful combination of reference data, tools, and technologies that will assist faculty, staff, and students in their scholarly research. In addition, KnowItAll U can be used to train students in the skills and technologies they will need once they leave academia.
A KnowItAll U annual site license includes a collection of software tools and over 1.2 million spectra:
· All Bio-Rad Sadtler spectra
o 390,000 IR, NMR, Raman, and mass spectra (including UV-Vis and additional NMR in Q4)
· All John Wiley & Sons spectra
o 845,000 IR, NIR, NMR, and mass spectra
· All spectra of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Robien / Universität Wien
o 117,000 NMR spectra
· SpectraBase™ community database
o A peer-reviewable database of NMR, IR, UV-Vis, Raman, NIR, and mass spectra edited and reviewed by selected members of the community
· KnowItAll Informatics System
o Bio-Rad’s award-winning spectroscopy, cheminformatics, and chemometrics software for Microsoft Windows
· KnowItAll AnyWare™
o A web browser-enabled client that is hardware, operating system, and browser independent, allowing access to the KnowItAll U database collection via Windows, Macintosh, or Linux
“KnowItAll U represents a tremendous resource for academic research and teaching” said Greg Banik, General Manager of Bio-Rad’s Informatics Division.
About KnowItAll Informatics System: Bio-Rad's KnowItAll® Informatics System is a fully integrated software and database package that provides scientific researchers multiple tools such as database building, management, search, analysis, prediction, structure drawing, and reporting, all within a single user interface. Bio-Rad offers specialized “editions” of its KnowItAll system specifically customized for spectroscopic, chemistry, in silico ADME/Tox, and most recently, metabolomics research.
Bio-Rad's Informatics Division: Bio-Rad's Informatics Division (www.informatics.bio-rad.com) specializes in state-of-the-art software and database solutions for the pharmaceutical, biotech, and chemical industries. Bio-Rad is the leading publisher of fully verified spectral databases, cheminformatics, spectroscopy software, and decision support systems for drug discovery. The company's award-winning KnowItAll Informatics System offers a fully integrated environment with flexible and expandable software and database solutions for spectroscopy (MS, NMR, IR, Raman, and spectral data management); cheminformatics; chemometrics, metabolomics, and in silico ADME/Tox prediction.
About Bio-Rad: Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (AMEX: BIO and BIOb), has remained at the center of scientific discovery for more than 50 years manufacturing and distributing a broad range of products for the life science research and clinical diagnostics markets. The company is renowned worldwide among hospitals, universities, major research institutions as well as biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies for its commitment to quality and customer service. Founded in 1952, Bio-Rad is headquartered in Hercules, California, and serves more than 85,000 research and industry customers worldwide through its global network of operations. The company employs over 5,000 people globally and had revenues exceeding $1.2 billion in 2006. For more information, visit www.bio-rad.com.
Submitted by Deborah Kernan, Deborah Kernan, Marketing Communications Manager, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Informatics Division. +1 267-322-6948 Deborah_Kernan@bio-rad.com
Elsevier MDL integrates Beilstein Database on DiscoveryGate®
Elsevier MDL has announced a dramatic improvement to its online DiscoveryGate® platform that will help scientists immediately get a comprehensive view of vital scientific information. Now a single search lets researchers find integrated and linked information from the highly acclaimed Beilstein Database and 22 other scientific databases covering bioactivity, synthetic methodology, chemical sourcing, drug safety, pharmacology and more.
The integration of data from the Beilstein Database with other DiscoveryGate content follows the recent acquisition of the Beilstein Database by Elsevier subsidiary, MDL Information Systems GmbH. All 9.9 million chemical structures from the Beilstein Database have been added to the DiscoveryGate Compound Index, including 6.5 million unique structures. DiscoveryGate now covers over 27 million chemical structures, more than 17 million reactions and the world’s largest collection of observed chemical properties, with well over 500 million experimentally measured values.
http://www.mdl.com/company/news/press_releases/2007/pr_mdl_discoverygate_01may07.jsp
Free evaluation of MDL Draw, discount academic pricing: Elsevier MDL is offering a free, 30-day evaluation of its new chemical drawing tool, MDL® Draw.
Researchers can take MDL Draw for a test drive to see how presentation-graphic drawing, industry-standard chemical representation, dynamic template toolbars, biomolecule drawing and backwards compatibility with MDL® ISIS can enhance productivity.
For a limited time, single copies of MDL Draw are available online to qualified academics for only $50. To register for the evaluation or learn about academic pricing, visit: http://www.mdl.com/eval/index.jsp?eval_id=6&source_id=chminf&campaign_id=Draw_2007
Submitted by Erik Miller, Manager, Marketing & Communications, Elsevier MDL, 2440 Camino Ramon, Ste 300, San Ramon, CA 94583. Tel: (925) 543-7806 Fax: (925) 543-7810 www.mdl.com
New Biorenewables Journal and Web Portal to Launch
Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) Press Release, London Monday 26 March 2007, SCI Press Office Email: press@soci.org Tel: +44(0)7931 315077
Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining (Biofpr) is a new peer-reviewed review and comment journal with an interactive and informative sister web portal, developed by the Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The first phase of Biofpr, the web portal (www.biofpr.com) will be launched during the spring. The portal will provide news, in-depth features and patent coverage and forums for interactive discussions and debate relevant to scientists and industry stakeholders within the biorenewables sector. Biofpr will be the definitive source of information on sustainable products, fuels and energy and will examine the full scope of international scientific research and industrial development along the entire supply chain. The free-access web portal guides users to the latest advances in academic, industrial and government sectors across the breadth of sustainable products, fuels and energy.
The first issue of the journal will be launched in summer 2007 and aims to provide a unique systems-based insight into technologies in these fields as well as their industrial development. Libraries are entitled to receive complimentary online access to the journal and will continue to have free online access during the complimentary period. (Follow the opt-in link from www.biofpr.com to sign up your library.)
“The purpose of the journal and web portal is to help a wide variety of institutions understand and better manage their own bio-economy transition,” explained Bruce Dale, Editor-in-Chief of Biofpr and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University, USA. The development of this bio-economy requires the effort of scientists, industry and policy makers alike, though the need for focus and coordination presents a barrier to its development. “Given the breadth of the issues involved and the depth of expertise required, it may be difficult for many institutions to successfully navigate the bio-economy transition,” said Dale. As issues associated with climate change and supply security facilitate a shift away from dependency on petroleum resources, crops and other bio-resources are increasingly being recognized as key platforms for the development of alternative fuels and products. Biofpr aims to assist in driving the innovation required to launch the bio-economy into the future.
The Biofpr web portal and journal provides a unique source of information for a range of stakeholders across the biorenewables sector and is dedicated to fostering its growth. Together the web portal and print journal will serve this growing interdisciplinary community as markets transform from a petroleum-oriented economy to a bio-based renewable one.
For further information please contact: SCI Press Office on Tel: +44(0)7931 315077 or Email: press@soci.org
About SCI
SCI is a unique international forum where science meets business on independent, impartial ground. Anyone can join, and the Society offers a chance to share information between sectors as diverse as food and agriculture, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, environmental science and safety. As well as publishing new research and running events, SCI has a growing database of member specialists who can give background information on a wide range of scientific issues.
Originally established in 1881, SCI is a registered charity with members in over 70 countries.
About Wiley
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., based in Chichester, England, is the largest subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. provides must-have content and services to customers worldwide. Their core businesses include scientific, technical, and medical journals, encyclopedias, books, and online products and services; professional and consumer books and subscription services; and educational materials for undergraduate and graduate students and lifelong learners. Wiley has publishing, marketing, and distribution centres in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols JWa and JWb. Wiley's recently re-launched Internet site can be accessed at http://www.wileyeurope.com
New Interface for the Combined Chemical Dictionary
From CRC Press
Celebrating its 10th Anniversary, the Combined Chemical Dictionary from CRC Press unveils a brand new interface! The latest version of the Combined Chemical Dictionary has now been uploaded. In addition to the high quality data users are accustomed to, there is a host of new features and enhanced searchability.
New Features Include:
· Fully customizable search screen that allow users to add or remove properties
· Flexible hitlists that can show or hide columns of a user’s choice
· Sort your search results by molecular formula, chemical name, or by other preferences
· Sophisticated search syntax
· Export options that let users view or work with data offline
Search quickly and easily through nearly 520,000 compounds with new tools that let users control how Search and Results fields are displayed and give them the ability to export data in the format they choose.
Visit ccd.chemnetbase.com to see the latest version.
Subscribers will need to download a new version of the plugin to perform structure searches.
In addition, the Dictionary of Natural Products from CRC Press has also received a renovation with new features that mirror those of the CCD The latest version of DNP now contains over 210,000 compounds and is the most comprehensive source of natural product data
To see the latest version, visit http://dnp.chemnetbase.com
Dictionary of Organic Compounds and Dictionary of Drugs are currently undergoing the same renovations and will be available shortly
Submitted by: Jeff Grubbs, Marketing Manager-Online Products, CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487. (561)-361-6069
Patent analysts and chemists can now access a new, comprehensive and rapidly updated database of chemical structures extracted from the full text of USPTO, EPO and WO patent documents. Reel Two's SureChem Portal and Database products enable users to structure search more than 5.4 million unique compounds across more than 7.3 million applications and granted patents. New patents are added to the database within days of being issued by the various patent offices.
Online searchers can access the SureChem portal, which has advanced chemistry and patent searching tools. Features include combined structure and keyword search, export of results to user's desktop, highlighting of both query terms and all chemical structures found in a patent, powerful query refinement tools and similarity and substructure search. It can be accessed via Reel Two's patent search portal, www.patentanalysis.com.
For those requiring in-house access to chemical patent data, the SureChem Database contains more than 5.4 million chemical structures indexed to USPTO, WO and EPO patents. It is easily loaded into most databases (Oracle, DB2, MySQL etc). There is no software to install, no integration to perform and updates are transmitted weekly via ftp download. Data fields in the database include Patent ID, SMILES string, chemical name, Patent Title, Patent Data, Patent Assignee and a link back to the location of the structure in the full text as displayed in the SureChem Portal. Custom fields, such as Inchi strings or canonicalized SMILES are also available.
To generate SureChem, Reel Two used its text mining expertise to extract all chemical names from the full text of all US, EPO and WO patents and convert them to chemical structures. Extensive formatting, error correction and data processing were performed to optimize the patent data for chemical entity extraction and structure conversion. Multiple name-to-structure conversion tools are used to ensure the highest possible accuracy.
For more information on SureChem, please contact sales@reeltwo.com or visit www.reeltwo.com. To access the SureChem portal, please visit www.patentanalysis.com.
Submitted by Nicko Goncharoff, Senior Vice President, Reel Two, Inc.t: 415-775-7630 c: 415-377-4215 e-mail: nicko@reeltwo.com
See complete listings at http://warr.com/meetings.html THanks to Wendy Warr for this service
Special Libraries Association (SLA) Annual Conference
June 3-6, Colorado Convention Centre, Denver, CO, USA
Contact: Special Libraries Association, 331 South Patrick Street Alexandria, VA 22314-3501, USA
Tel. 703 647 4900
Fax: 703 647 4901
E-mail: sla@sla.org
WWW: http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2007/index.cfm
World Pharmaceutical Congress
June 12-13, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Contact: Cambridge Healthtech Institute, 250 First Avenue, Suite 300, Needham, MA 02494, USA
Tel. 781 972 5400
Fax: 781 972 5425
E-mail: chi@healthtech.com
WWW: http://www.worldpharmacongress.com/
Concurrent conferences: Cell-based Assays for HTS, Microdosing and Phase 0, Hit to Lead Optimization, Disease Models, Cardiotoxicity and Safety
UKeiG Annual Seminar: Riding the Waves or Treading water? Confronting the Challenges of a Volatile Electronic Environment
June 13, Bloomsbury Suite, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, England
Contact: Christine Baker, Piglet Cottage, Redmire, Leyburn, North Yorkshire DL8 4EH, UK
Tel. +44 (0) 1969 625751
Fax: +44 (0) 1969 625751
E-mail: cabaker@ukeig.org.uk
WWW: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2007/june/ridingthewaves.html
Assessing the Quality and Impact of Research: Practices and Initiatives in Scholarly Information. ICSTI 2007 Public Conference
June 21-22, INIST-CNRS, Vandoeuvre-Lès-Nancy, France
Contact: Elisabeth Maître-Allain or Claire Santiano, ICSTI Secretariat,
51 boulevard de Montmorency,75016 Paris, France
Tel : +33 1 45 25 65 92
Fax: +33 1 42 15 12 62
Internet: icsti@icsti.org
WWW: <http://www.icsti.org/> http://www.icsti.org/
Preliminary program at http://www.icsti.org/programmedraft_PC07.pdf
ACS 62nd Annual Northwest Regional Meeting (NORM)
June 17-20, Boise, Idaho, USA
Contact: Dr. Timothy L. Hubler, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Tel. 509 373-0249
Fax: 509 376-5106
E-mail: tim.hubler@pnl.gov
WWW: http://northwestchemistry.org/Norm_2007/index.htm
5th Joint Meeting on Medicinal Chemistry
June 17-21, Portorož, Slovenia
Contact: Dr. Lucija Peterlin Mašic, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, Aškerceva 7, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Tel. +386 (0)1 476 96 35
Fax: +386 (0)1 425 80 31
E-mail: info@jmmc2007.si
WWW: http://www.jmmc2007.si
Austrian-German-Hungarian-Italian-Polish-Slovenian Joint Meeting on Medicinal Chemistry under the auspices of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry
The Fourth Joint Sheffield Conference on Chemoinformatics
June 18-20, University of Sheffield, UK
Contact: Val Gillet, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 211 Portobello Street, Sheffield S1 4DP, UK
E-mail: cheminf2007@sheffield.ac.uk
WWW: http://cisrg.shef.ac.uk/shef2007/ Sponsored by the Chemical Structure Association Trust and the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society
7th International Conference on Early Toxicity Screening
June 21-22, Seattle, WA, USA
Contact: Ms. Nola Mahaney, Vice President, Operations, Institute for Scientific Exchange, Inc., 5707 Calverton Street, Suite 2C, Baltimore, MD 21228, USA
Tel. 410 869 9166
Fax: 410 869 9560
E-mail: nola@isciencex.com
WWW: http://www.isciencex.com/events.htm
Assessing the Quality and Impact of Research: Practices and Initiatives in Scholarly Information. ICSTI 2007 Public Conference
June 21-22, INIST-CNRS, Vandoeuvre-Lès-Nancy, France
Contact: Elisabeth Maître-Allain or Claire Santiano, ICSTI Secretariat, 51 boulevard de Montmorency,75016 Paris, France
Tel. +33 1 45 25 65 92
Fax: +33 1 42 15 12 62
E-mail: icsti@icsti.org
WWW: http://www.icsti.org/
American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference
June 21-27, Washington Convention Center, Washington DC, USA
Contact: American Library Association, 50 E. Huron Chicago, IL 60611, USA
Tel. 800 545 2433; 312 944 2798
E-mail: customerservice@ala.org
WWW: http://www.ala.org/ala/eventsandconferencesb/annual/2007a/home.htm
10th International Conference on Drug Drug Interactions
June 25-26, Bellevue, WA, USA
Contact: Ms. Nola Mahaney, Vice President, Operations, Institute for Scientific Exchange, Inc., 5707 Calverton Street, Suite 2C, Baltimore, MD 21228, USA
Tel. 410 869 9166
Fax: 410 869 9560
E-mail: nola@isciencex.com
WWW: http://www.isciencex.com/events.htm
Scientific and Regulatory Updates and DDI Technologies in Depth: Enzyme Inhibition, Enzyme Induction and Drug-Transporter Interactions.
First Bloomsbury Conference on e-Publishing and e-Publications. Books and Journals: Models in Flux
June 28-29, UCL's Bloomsbury Campus, London, England
Contact: Andy Dawson, UCL School of Library, Archive, and Information Studies
E-mail: andrew.dawson@ucl.ac.uk
WWW: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/e-publishing/
Intelligence Tools. Data Mining, Visualization
June 28-29, Montréal, Canada
Contact: Infonortics, 15 Market Place, Tetbury, Glos. GL8 8DD, UK
Tel. +44 1666 505 772
Fax: +44 1666 505 774
E-mail: contact@infonortics.com
WWW: http://www.infonortics.com/idv/index.html
6th Asian Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (AFMC) International Medicinal Chemistry Symposium (AIMECS '07)
July 8-11, Istanbul, Turkey
Contact: Ismail Yalcin, Ankara University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Chemistry Dept., Tandogan TR-06100 Ankara, Turkey
Tel. +90 312 223 92 53
Fax: +90 312 223 69 40
E-mail: yalcin@pharmacy.ankara.edu.tr
WWW: http://www.aimecs07.org/
Modern Synthetic Methods & Chiral USA
July 11-13, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Contact: Scientific Update, Maycroft Place, Stone Cross, Mayfield, East Sussex, TN20 6EW, UK
Tel. +44(0) 1435 873062
Fax: +44(0) 1435 872734
E-mail: info@scientificupdate.co.uk
WWW: http://www.scientificupdate.co.uk/mailsys/scripts/script.php?id=65&uid=61105&messageId=172&mid=583
41st IUPAC World Congress
August 5-11, Lingotto Conference Centre, Turin, Italy
Contact: Anna Botto, M.A.F. Servizi s.r.l., Corso Svizzera, 185, Centro Pier Della Francesca, 10149 Torino, Italy
Tel. +39 011 505900
Fax: +39 011 505976
E-mail: iupac.2007@unito.it; abotto@mafservizi.it
WWW: http://www.iupac2007.org/
234th American Chemical Society Meeting and Exposition
August 19-23, Boston, MA, USA
Contact: American Chemical Society, 1155 16th Street, Washington, DC 20036-4899, USA
Tel. 202 872 4600
Fax: 202 872 6128
E-mail: natlmtgs@acs.org
WWW: http://www.acs.org/meetings/
IFLA World Library and Information Congress. Libraries for the Future: Progress, Development and Partnerships
August 19-23, Durban, South Africa
Contact: IFLA, P.O. Box 95312, 2509 CH The Hague, The Netherlands
E-mail: wlic2007@congrex.com
WWW: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla73/index.htm
12th Asian Chemical Congress
August 23-25, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Contact: 12ACC Secretariat, Institut Kimia Malaysia, 127B, Jalan Aminuddin Baki, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel. +60 3 7728 3272
Fax: +60 3 7728 9909
E-mail: 12acc@ikm.org.my
WWW: http://www.ikm.org.my/12acc.htm
The Scale-Up of Chemical Processes
August 29-31, Boston, MA, USA
Contact: Scientific Update, Maycroft Place, Stone Cross, Mayfield, East Sussex, TN20 6EW, UK
Tel. +44(0) 1435 873062
Fax: +44(0) 1435 872734
E-mail: info@scientificupdate.co.uk
WWW: http://www.scientificupdate.co.uk/conferences/scaleup/index.php
ACS 20th Rocky Mountain Regional Meeting (RMRM)
August 29-31, Denver, CO, USA
Contact: Gerry Meyer, University of Wyoming
Tel. 307 766 2697
WWW: http://www.uwyo.edu/rmr2007acs-aiche/
4th International Symposium on Computational Methods in Toxicology and Pharmacology Integrating Internet Resources (CMTPI-2007)
September 1-5, Moscow, Russia
Contact: Prof. Vladimir Poroikov, Institute of Biomedical Chemistry of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Pogodinskaya Street, 10, Moscow, 119121, Russia
Tel. +7 495 245 27 53
Fax: +7 495 245 08 57
E-mail: cmtpi2007@yahoo.com
WWW: http://www.ivtn.ru/cmtpi-2007/
Advances in Structure-Based Drug Discovery
September 9-11, Hyatt Regency Airport, San Francisco, CA, USA
Contact: ACS ProSpectives, American Chemical Society, 1155 Sixteenth Street, NW, OTH-1213, Washington DC, 20036, USA
Tel. 800 227 5558 ext. 4508; 202 872 4508
Fax: 202 872 6013
E-mail: ACSProSpectives@acs.org
WWW: http://acswebcontent.acs.org/acsprospectives/07structure/index.html
IBC's 14th Annual Discovery-2-Diagnostics Event and Exhibition
September 17-19, Philadelphia Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Contact: IBC Life Sciences, One Research Drive, Suite 400A, Westborough, MA 01581, USA
Tel. 508 616 5550
Fax: 508 616 5522
E-mail: reg@ibcusa.com
WWW: http://www.ibclifesciences.com/D3176/6097.xml
Featuring Chips to Hits, Molecular Diagnostics and Biomarkers Conferences
IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC)
September 25-28, Swissôtel The Stamford, Singapore
Contact: Lipo Wang, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Block S1, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Tel. +656 790 6372
Fax: +656 791 2687
E-mail: cec2007@evo.ece.nus.edu.sg
WWW: http://www.cec2007.org
Discovery Chemistry Congress
October 3-4, South San Francisco, CA, USA
Contact: Select Conferences, Crestland House, Sudbury, CO10 0BD, UK
Tel. +44 (0)1787 314958
Fax: +44 (0)1787 319235
E-mail: enquiries@selectconferences.com
WWW: http://www.selectbiosciences.com/conferences/DiscChemCongress07/
Latest Advances in Drug Discovery & Development. eCheminfo Community of Practice Meeting
October 15-18, Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, USA
Contact: Dr. Barry Hardy, eCheminfo Community of Practice Manager, Douglas Connect, Switzerland
Tel. +41 61 851 0170
Fax: +44 870 112 38 44
E-mail: echeminfo@douglasconnect.com
WWW: http://echeminfo.com/COMTY_conferences
ASIS&T 2007. Joining Research and Practice: Social Computing and Information Science
October 18-25, Hyatt Regency, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Contact: Richard Hill, Executive Director, American Society for Information Science and Technology, 1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA
Tel. 301 495 0900
Fax: 301 495 0810
E-mail: rhill@asis.org
WWW: http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM07/am07cfp.html
ICIC. International Conference for Science & Business Information
October 21-24, Barcelona, Spain
Contact: Infonortics, 15 Market Place, Tetbury, Glos. GL8 8DD, UK
Tel. +44 1666 505 772
Fax: +44 1666 505 774
E-mail: contact@infonortics.com
WWW: http://www.infonortics.com/chemical/index.html
(Formerly the International Chemical Information Conference)
The First International M-Libraries Conference: Information Access Anywhere, Anytime
November 13-14, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Contact: Nicola Dowson, Learning and Teaching Librarian Team Leader (Arts, Maths & Computing and IET), Open University Library and Learning Resources Centre, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
Tel. +44 (0) 1908 659957
E-mail: M-Libraries-Conference@open.ac.uk; n.dowson@open.ac.uk
WWW: http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/index.cfm?wpid=7150
Medicinal Chemistry 2007
November 26-29, Kololi, The Gambia
Contact: Nicola Dowson, Learning and Teaching Librarian Team Leader (Arts, Maths & Computing and IET), Open University Library and Learning Resources Centre, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
Tel. +31 (0)30 21 45 715
E-mail: england@mangosee.com
WWW: http://www.mangosee.com/medchem2007
December
Online Information 2007
December 4-6, Olympia, London, England
Contact: Emma Harris, PR Manager, VNU Exhibitions Europe, 32-34 Broadwick Street, London, W1A 2HG, UK
Tel. +44 (0)20 7316 9660
Fax: +44 (0)20 7316 9566
E-mail: emma.harris@vnuexhibitions.co.uk
WWW: http://www.online-information.co.uk
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