NEWSAND NOTES
OBITUARY Julian F. Smith Dr. Julian Francis Smith, one of the great pioneers in chemical documentation, a major factor in the founding of the ACS Division of Chemical Literature, and the fourth chairman (1952) of the Division, died on April 13, 1974, a t the age of 80. Dr. Smith was born in Liscomb, Iowa, on November 1, 1893. He obtained his B.S. a t the University of Illinois in 1916, M.S. at the University of California in 1920, and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1922. While a t the University of California, he was an assistant, 1919-20, and while a t the University of Chicago, a fellow, 1921-2. During the summers of 1916-21, he was employed as a research librarian at National Aniline and Chemical Co., N. Y. Evidently, his summer employment shaped his career. After obtaining his Ph.D. in chemistry, he worked as a research librarian a t Commercial Solvents Corp. in Indiana, 1922-3, as a technical librarian at B. F. Goodrich Co., 1923-8, and then as a partner in Smith & Smith Reference Service, 1928-30. From 1930 to 1939, Dr. Smith was employed as a chemist in the Du Pont Experimental Station’s Intelligence Division. He was Associate Director of the Hooker Science Library, Central College, Mo., 1939-42; technical librarian and editor, Institute of Gas Technology, 1942-3; senior chemical specialist, Alien Property Custodian, 1943-4; editor, Institute of Textile Technology, 1944-7; scientific head, Science Information Division of the U. S. Office of Naval Research, 1947-52; consultant in chemical literature, 1952-5; and professor of chemistry, Lenoir-Rhyne College, 1955-66. During the summers, while he was associated with Lenoir-Rhyne, Dr. Smith worked a t the National Bureau of Standards. H e retired in 1966 to live near his son in Delaware, maintaining an active interaction with his many Chemical Literature friends in Delaware. Dr. Smith presented approximately 30 papers before the Division of Chemical Literature from 1943 (when it was a unit of the Division of Chemical Education) to 1964. He chaired many symposia and assisted T. E. R. Singer in setting up programs for the Division. Dr. Smith authored many publications in several areas of chemical documentation, disclosing his thorough knowledge of literature sources and linguistics with an outstanding and refreshing writing skill and style. We who knew Dr. Smith, heard his papers, and read his writings will miss him sorely. We who use the chemical literature are indebted to Dr. Smith. We who are members of the Division of Chemical Literature will long honor his memory. HERMAN SKOLNIK MEETINGS Moscow Symposium on Patent Information The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in collaboration with the State Committee for Inventions and Discoveries of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, is organizing and sponsoring a Symposium entitled “The Role of Patent Information in Research and Development,” to be held in Moscow from October 7 t o 11, 1974. The Symposium will inform its participants on the importance of the information contained in patent documents and the best ways of retrieving that information. Lectures will be given by experts from all parts of the world who are among the most eminent specialists in the field of patent information.
Conference on Large Data Bases The NAS/NRC Committee on Chemical Information is sponsoring a conference on Large Data Bases, May 22 and
23, a t the National Academy of Sciences, Lecture Room, 2101 Constitution Ave., Washington, D. C. Application for attendance should be sent to the National Research Council at the above address. Registration is $25.00. The program is: May 22 Session I. Overview and State of the Art Chairperson: Dr. Russell J. Rowlett, Jr. Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio 9:45 Search Strategies and User Interaction-R. Giering 10:45 Physical Security and File Integrity-R. Courtney 11:15 File Structure and Storage Media-R Lefkovitz Session 11. Large Data Base Experiences Chairperson: Professor Martha E. Williams University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill. 1:30 Institute for Scientific Information-M. Weinstock 2:00 Lawrence Livermore Laboratories-S. Fernbach 2:30 Ohio College Library Center-F. Kilgour 3:OO University of Illinois-P. Alsberg 4:OO National Library of Medicine-D. Hummel 5:OO Social Hour May 23 Session 111. Overview and State of the Art Chairperson: Dr. Herman Skolnik Hercules Inc., Wilmington, Del. 9:00 Input/Output-J. Snyder 9:30 Character Sets-D. Rule 10:45 Data Compression-S. Heaps 11:45 Chemical Structures-B. Vasta Session IV. Large Data Base Experiences Chairperson: Dr. C. M. Bowman Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich. 1:30 Lockheed-R. Summit 2:OO Chemical Abstracts Service-R. Wigington 2:45 System Development Corp.-C. Cuadra 3:15 Panel Discussion
Gordon Research Conference. Scientific Information Problems in Research July 15-19. Introduction: Bart Holm, “Research on information processing and its future impact on chemistry.” Information input t o machine processing systems: S.B. Soloway, F. G. Stockton, “Recognition procedures and utilization of chemical structure file system”; T. L. Isenhour, “Chemical structure input by optical recognition”; Raj Reddy, “Optical recognition of speech input.” Manipulation of input data: Martin Kay, “Machine translation”; Susan Artandi, “Machine indexing”; James Rush, “Machine abstracting”; Robert E. Stobaugh, “Chemical structure and name manipulation”; Todd Wipke, “Organic chemical synthesis”; Cyrus Levinthal, “3-D graphics for chemical structures.” Utilization of data: Bruce Kowalski, “Prediction of chemical properties through pattern recognition”; Jack Frazer, “Pattern recognition in mass spectrography”; Dennis Smith, “Approaches to chemical problems by use of artificial intelligence.” Conclusions: Bruce Buchanan, “Artificial intelligence, past, present and future’’; Russell Rowlett, “Conference summary and future plans.” SUMMER COURSES University of Illinois A special graduate level course in library science is to be offered at the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois in the summer semester of 1974. The course will be L.S. 450H, “The Handling of Machine-Readable Data Bases,” and will be taught by Martha E. Williams, Research Professor and Director of the Information Retrieval Research Laboratory a t the University of Illinois. Professor Williams Journal of Chemical
Documentation, Vol.
14, No. 2, 1974
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