NEWS AND NOTES
Letter to the Editor
Sources o f Scientific and Technical Information
Dear Sir: On page 42, Volume 12, Number 1, 1972, Feldmann et al., cite a personal communication from me in 1970 in support of some of their references to the Chemical Abstracts Service Registry System. If the citation is read to cover the sentence to which it is attached, it is essentially correct in that the Registry files contain all substances indexed by Chemical Abstracts from (and including) 1965 (plus some thousands of “pre-1965” substances), and the data on size and rate of growth of Registry substance files are correct as of the time noted. Unfortunately, the third sentence in this paragraph, to which my personal communication attribution is attached, is wrong. I would like to think that I did not communicate the notion that a CAS Registry Number could be clerically assigned. No Registry Number has ever been clerically assigned a t CAS. Registry Numbers are computer-assigned as a final step in the registration process which is essentially a n automated procedure for matching input descriptions of substances with filed descriptions. If the algorithm determines that the input record of a substance headed towards the CA index is identical with the registry-stored record of a substance, the previously computer-assigned Registry Number is retrieved. If the candidate substance is algorithmically determined to be new to the file, the computer assigns a new number. The CAS registration process could be simulated by trained chemists but not by even the best of clerks.
Information Resources Press, a division of Herner and Company, Washington, D.C., announced the publication of Exhibits of Sources of Scientific and. Technical Information by Saul Herner and Jeanne C. Moody. This book is a companion to A Brief Guide to Sources of Scientific and Technical Information by Saul Herner. While A Brief Guide described the major scientific and technical tools, techniques, and resources via textual discussions and annotations, Exhibits of Sources presents them graphically. Exhibits of Sources is an outgrowth of a short course developed and tested under the aegis of the Committee on Scientific and Technical Information (COSATI) with financial support from the U.S. Office of Education. A total of 101 scientific and technical information sources are graphically depicted.
RALPH E. O’DETTE Chemical Abstracts Service The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 43210
1972 Gordon Research Conference Program on Scientific Information Problems in Research
10 July. David G. Hays, keynote speaker, “The languages of information handling systems for science”; Winifred Sewell, “Language problems of task-oriented systems. ” (Jane J. Robinson, discussion leader): Language analysis. 11 July. (Susan Artandi, discussion leader): Indexing and retrieval languages. (Martha E. Williams. discussion leader): Vocabulary control. 12 July. (Phyllis B. Baxendale, discussion leader): Computer-aided indexing and retrieval. (Ronald L. Wigington, discussion leader): Computer programming languages. 13 July. (William S. Budington, discussion leader): Foreign language materials. James Bostain, “Linguistics as an art. ” 14 July. (James E. Rush, discussion leader): Output forms and languages.
CA Publishes 5 Millionth Abstract
The phenomenal growth of chemical science and technology in the 20th century was underscored when Chemical Abstracts published its 5 millionth abstract. Since CA is dedicated to covering all published material of chemical interest, its growth has directly paralleled the growth of chemical science and technology in this century. It took almost 32 years-from 1907 to 1938-for CA to publish its first million abstracts. The second million took another 18 years, the third million eight years, and the fourth million four years and eight months. The fifth million appeared over the past 40 months. CA’s editor, Dr. Russell J. Rowlett, Jr., says that if the present rate of growth continues, the 10 million mark will be passed in another 10 years. In 1971 alone CA published almost 309,000 abstracts of chemical articles, patents, and reports and referenced an additional 40,000 chemical patents through its indexes. To accomplish this, the CAS staff and corps of abstractors combed the contents of some 12,000 scientific and technical journals published in 56 different languages and chemical patents issued by 26 nations. More than 70% of the material abstracted originated outside of the United States. Almost 25% of it came from the Soviet Union. The end result of the distillation process was some 25,000 pages of abstracts in 52 weekly issues of CA plus another 25,000 pages of highly detailed semiannual indexes. While most of the information for CA now is processed by the Chemical Abstracts Service full-time staff of 1000 in Columbus, the publication still depends, as it has since 1907, on part-time volunteers for a part of the abstracting effort. More than 2700 men and women in 56 different countries write abstracts for CA in their spare time. One of them, Dr. Morton Pader of Teaneck, New Jersey, authored the 5-millionth abstract. Journal of Chemical Documentation, Vol 12, No. 2, 1972
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