Chemical Abstracts Service

Last updated

CAS
Formation1907
Headquarters Columbus, Ohio
Location
  • United States
Official language
English
President
Manuel Guzman
Website www.cas.org

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

Contents

Databases

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

CAS References

CAS References 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

As of 2023, the CAS Registry contains information on more than 200 million organic and inorganic substances, and about 70 million protein and nucleic acid 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 CAS pelotonia.jpg
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 it was available only as a client application (for both Windows and MacOS operating systems), a web version was released in 2008. [5] By that time it had a graphical interface, and was able to do graphical searches for chemical structures and reactions (the first ever database to allow such functions), as well as keyword searches for literature in chemistry and related disciplines. SciFinder Scholar was a very similar a product developed for academic institutions. [6] In 2017 the ACS released SciFinder-n as a web-only product with the same data content and improved user interface and search functions. [7] In 2023 SciFinder Scholar was discontinued. [8]

SciFinder is considered as the best source of chemical information worldwide, with substantially larger number of relevant information sources than Web of Science or Scopus with Reaxys. [9] Five most significant disadvantages of SciFinder are:

(1) lack of SQL-like search capabilities for Titles, Abstracts, etc. Instead SciFinder provides keyword, chemical name, chemical structure and chemical reaction searches.

(2) due to its unique and unusual search functions, substantial training is needed in order to fully take advantage of SciFinder capabilities. [10]

(3) SciFinder has an inconsistent coverage for patent documents with some years for some authorities randomly missing. [11] For this reason, Questel-Orbit, which also has chemical structure search, [12] is recommended for patent prior art searches.

(4) SciFinder has a limit (ca. 100-200 per day) on the number of search results (bibliometric data for references), that can be exported. [13] SciFinder routinely permanently terminates access for users, who attempt to download a large number of references. [14]

(5) The cost of subscription to SciFinder-n is rather high and apparently individually priced for each customer. The ACS prevents its customers from disclosing their product prices via non-disclosure agreements. [15] Limited data (often obtained via FOIA requests to public universities) show, that in 2000 the price for a PhD-granting institution with one-at-a-time user access was $38,050 per year. [16]

CASSI

CASSI stands for Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index. Since 2009, this formerly print and CD-ROM compilation is available as a free online resource to look up and confirm publication information. The online CASSI Search Tool 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. [17]

The range is from 1907 to the present, including both serial and non-serial scientific and technical publications. The database is updated quarterly. [17] Beyond CASSI lists abbreviated journal titles from early chemical literature and other historical reference sources. [18]

History

CAS Headquarters Complex, completed in 1965 with addition (on left) in 1973. Columbus, Ohio Chemical Abstracts Service complex.jpg
CAS Headquarters Complex, completed in 1965 with addition (on left) in 1973. Columbus, Ohio

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. [19]

For many years, beginning in 1909, the offices of Chemical Abstracts were housed in various places on the Columbus, Ohio campus of Ohio State University, including McPherson Laboratory and Watts Hall. [20] 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." [21] CAS was an early leader in the use of computer technology to organize and disseminate information. [22]

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 1965, CAS left their offices at OSU for a new headquarters north of campus. Ground was broken in 1971 for an expansion to the building designed by architects Brubaker/Brandt to accommodate the review of 400,000 new research reports printed each year. The 5-story 142,000 square foot building opened in May 1973. [23]

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. [24]

In 2021, CAS rebranded along with a change in logo. The organization updated their mission to be more focused on dynamic responsiveness due to ongoing changes within scientific industries and communities. [25]

In 2022, CAS announced the release of almost half a million CAS registry numbers under an open license in their Common Chemistry project. [26] [27]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CAS Registry Number</span> Chemical identifier

A CAS Registry Number is a unique identification number, assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) in the US to every chemical substance described in the open scientific literature, in order to index the substance in the CAS Registry. This registry includes all substances described since 1957, plus some substances from as far back as the early 1800s; it is a chemical database that includes organic and inorganic compounds, minerals, isotopes, alloys, mixtures, and nonstructurable materials. CAS RNs are generally serial numbers, so they do not contain any information about the structures themselves the way SMILES and InChI strings do.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Chemical Society</span> American scientific society

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related fields. It is one of the world's largest scientific societies by membership. The ACS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., and it has a large concentration of staff in Columbus, Ohio.

<i>Journal of the American Chemical Society</i> Academic journal

The Journal of the American Chemical Society is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the Journal of Analytical and Applied Chemistry and the American Chemical Journal. It covers all fields of chemistry. Since 2021, the editor-in-chief is Erick M. Carreira. In 2014, the journal moved to a hybrid open access publishing model.

The Beilstein database is the largest database in the field of organic chemistry, in which compounds are uniquely identified by their Beilstein Registry Number. The database covers the scientific literature from 1771 to the present and contains experimentally validated information on millions of chemical reactions and substances from original scientific publications. The electronic database was created from Handbuch der Organischen Chemie, founded by Friedrich Konrad Beilstein in 1881, but has appeared online under a number of different names, including Crossfire Beilstein. Since 2009, the content has been maintained and distributed by Elsevier Information Systems in Frankfurt under the product name "Reaxys".

<i>Advances in Physics</i> Academic journal

Advances in Physics is a bimonthly scientific journal published by Taylor & Francis that was established in 1952. The journal is also issued as a supplement to the Philosophical Magazine. Peer review is determined on a case-by-case basis. The editors-in-chief are Paolo Radaelli and Joerg Schmalian.

<i>Nature Materials</i> Academic journal

Nature Materials is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio. It was launched in September 2002. Vincent Dusastre is the launching and current chief editor.

CODEN – according to ASTM standard E250 – is a six-character, alphanumeric bibliographic code that provides concise, unique and unambiguous identification of the titles of periodicals and non-serial publications from all subject areas.

<i>Advanced Functional Materials</i> Academic journal

Advanced Functional Materials is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, published by Wiley-VCH. Established in February 2001, the journal began to publish monthly in 2002 and moved to 18/year in 2006, biweekly in 2008, and weekly in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Food Science and Technology Abstracts</span> Scientific publication database

FSTA, also known as FSTA – Food Science and Technology Abstracts, is produced by IFIS Publishing.

FIZ Karlsruhe — Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, formerly Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe, is a not-for-profit company with the public mission to make sci-tech information from all over the world publicly available and to provide related services in order to support the national and international transfer of knowledge and the promotion of innovation. The service institution is member of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community, a union of German research institutes. The institute provides information services and infrastructure for the academic and research community and maintains a collection of scientific databases.

Ei Compendex is an engineering bibliographic database published by Elsevier. The name "Compendex" stands for COMPuterized ENgineering inDEX. It covers scientific literature pertaining to engineering materials. It started in 1884 under the name Engineering Index (Ei) and its first electronic bulletin was issued in 1967. Elsevier purchased the parent company Engineering Information in 1998.

<i>Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica</i> Academic journal

Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica (ABBS) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal which publishes original research articles, short communications, and reviews in the fields of biochemistry and biophysics. Established in 1958, the journal is sponsored by the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, an institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is published monthly by Oxford Journals and was published by Blackwell Publishing prior to January 2009.

<i>ACS Nano</i> Academic journal

ACS Nano is a monthly, peer-reviewed, scientific journal, first published in August 2007 by the American Chemical Society. The current editor in chief is Xiaodong Chen. The journal publishes original research articles, reviews, perspectives, interviews with distinguished researchers, and views on the future of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

<i>Current Organic Chemistry</i> Academic journal

Current Organic Chemistry is a scientific review journal summarizing progress in the fields of asymmetric synthesis, organo-metallic chemistry, bioorganic chemistry, heterocyclic chemistry, natural product chemistry and analytical methods in organic chemistry. The journal is currently being edited by Dr. György Keglevich.

The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Chemical Society. The editor-in-chief is Gregory D. Scholes at Princeton University. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters covers research on all aspects of physical chemistry. George C. Schatz was editor-in-chief from 2010 to 2019.

<i>Transgenic Research</i> Academic journal

Transgenic Research, international in scope, is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed, scientific journal, published by Springer. The co-editors-in-chief are Johannes Buyel and Simon Lillico.

Reaxys is a web-based tool for the retrieval of information about chemical compounds and data from published literature, including journals and patents. The information includes chemical compounds, chemical reactions, chemical properties, related bibliographic data, substance data with synthesis planning information, as well as experimental procedures from selected journals and patents. It is licensed by Elsevier.

Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology Abstracts (CEABA-VTB) is an abstracting and indexing service that is published by DECHEMA, BASF, and Bayer Technology Services, all based in Germany. This is a bibliographic database that covers multiple disciplines.

Chemisches Zentralblatt is the first and oldest abstracts journal published in the field of chemistry. It covers the chemical literature from 1830 to 1969 and describes therefore the "birth" of chemistry as science, in contrast to alchemy. The information contained in this German journal is comparable with the content of the leading source of chemical information Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), which started publishing abstracts in English in 1907.

<i>ACS Photonics</i> Academic journal

ACS Photonics is a monthly, peer-reviewed, scientific journal, first published in January 2014 by the American Chemical Society. The current editor in chief is Romain Quidant. The interdisciplinary journal publishes original research articles, letters, comments, reviews and perspectives.

References

  1. "CAS Printed Products". CAS. Archived from the original on June 12, 2010. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
  2. "CAS Registry". www.cas.org. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  3. 50 Millionth Unique Chemical Substance Recorded in CAS REGISTRY Archived 2009-09-17 at the Wayback Machine , Reuters.com
  4. FIZ Karlsruhe. "STN International: Home". stn-international.com. Archived from the original on November 2, 2008. Retrieved July 10, 2008.
  5. "New SciFinder Available Via the Web Archived 2008-05-13 at the Wayback Machine ". CAS. April 6, 2008.
  6. SciFinder Scholar Archived 2006-10-06 at the Wayback Machine , CAS
  7. "CAS announces SciFinder-n, a new research experience that elevates scientific discovery" (Press release).
  8. "SciFinder Classic is Retiring – Sciences Library News". September 16, 2022.
  9. Li, Jie; Burnham, Judy F.; Lemley, Trey; Britton, Robert M. (2010). "Citation Analysis: Comparison of Web of Science®, Scopus™, SciFinder®, and Google Scholar". Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries. 7 (3): 196–217. doi:10.1080/15424065.2010.505518. S2CID   62564372.
  10. Gabrielson, S. W. (2018). "SciFinder". Journal of the Medical Library Association. 106 (4): 588–590. doi:10.5195/jmla.2018.515. PMC   6148602 .
  11. "Coverage of CAS Basic Patents by Year".
  12. "Chemistry Search".
  13. SciFinder and limitsSciFinder Archived 2023-06-20 at the Wayback Machine
  14. SFn EWP Terms cas.org
  15. Named user terms and conditions cas.org
  16. "SciFinder Scholar".
  17. 1 2 "About the CAS Source Index (CASSI) Search Tool". Provided by Chemical Abstracts Service. American Chemical Society. December 2009. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
  18. Peters, Marion, Beyond CASSI (PDF), Chemical Abstracts Service, archived from the original (PDF) on July 3, 2017, retrieved August 27, 2015
  19. American Chemistry Society. Chemical Landmarks, Chemical Abstracts. "ACS Online" . Retrieved August 1, 2009.
  20. Chemical Abstracts Service. About CAS, CAS 100th Anniversary, CAS History: Milestones [Online]. http://www.cas.org/aboutcas/cas100/annivhistory.html Archived 2010-06-12 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 8.1.2009
  21. Chemical Abstracts Service. About CAS, CAS 100th Anniversary, CAS History: Milestones, 1958 Dale Baker [Online]. http://www.cas.org/aboutcas/cas100/annivhistory.html Archived 2010-06-12 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 8.1.2009
  22. David Flaxbart. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Winter 2007. http://www.istl.org/07-winter/viewpoints.html. Accessed 8.01.2009
  23. "CA to Dedicate New Office Building". The Columbus Dispatch. May 27, 1973. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
  24. Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Archived 2012-07-12 at archive.today , American Chemical Society.
  25. "CAS launches new brand reflecting strategic evolution to empower smarter science". April 28, 2021.
  26. American Chemical Society (2023). "CAS Common Chemistry" . Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  27. Jacobs, Andrea; Williams, Dustin; Hickey, Katherine; Patrick, Nathan; Williams, Antony J.; Chalk, Stuart; McEwen, Leah; Willighagen, Egon; Walker, Martin; Bolton, Evan; Sinclair, Gabriel; Sanford, Adam (June 13, 2022). "CAS Common Chemistry in 2021: Expanding Access to Trusted Chemical Information for the Scientific Community". Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. 62 (11): 2737–2743. doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.2c00268. PMC   9199008 . PMID   35559614.