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CAS Celebrates 100th Anniversary

CAS Celebrates 100th Anniversary, Looks Forward to Serving New Generation of Scientists

CAS Chronicles Century of Scientific Discoveries, Mirrors Evolution of Information Age

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 23, 2007  Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), celebrates its 100th Anniversary this year as the global leader in chemical information.  CAS provides access to the worlds chemical and scientific literature and patents, with indexes built around the worlds largest compendium of chemical substances, to speed and enable scientific discovery to improve peoples lives.

Speaking of the value of CAS services, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Dr. Robert Grubbs, said, "CAS databases streamline the investigative process - allowing you to take an idea and rapidly find the important and necessary information before you forget about the idea or it loses its excitement. That really is invaluable."

"CAS is an essential part of the value ACS provides scientists," said ACS Executive Director, Madeleine Jacobs. "Speaking as a chemist, I can say with great pride that CAS has transformed the way chemists and other scientists carry out research. We are happy to join with scientists around the world in celebrating the centenary of this renowned resource that remains essential to today's researchers."

Chemical Abstracts, the leading source of indexed scientific literature, is one of the great enterprises in the history of science; it contains more than 27 million bibliographic records. And the CAS Registry^SM, today comprising more than 31 million records of organic and inorganic substances, is a monumental and vital tool in scientific research.  These two massive and interlinked databases, along with related databases of 13 million reactions, plus citations, Markush structures, and other data form the backbone of the most valuable digital research collection in the chemical sciences. Scientists, information professionals, and academicians around the world access these databases daily through online services that have revolutionized the way scientists conduct research.

CAS has evolved into a successful global information provider: fully electronic, web-enabled, and growing in every major market.  We are proud to base our operations in Ohio, while serving scientists around the world said CAS President Robert Massie.  Chemistry is both the central science and a discipline in which we continuously build upon and learn from past discoveries.  So the value of the CAS databases to scientific inquiry grows each year.

CAS enters its centenary year with plans to provide a new generation of chemists and scientists in allied fields the benefit of CAS incomparable database content and sophisticated search technology. The organization, based in Columbus and with customers in more than 100 countries, will host customer briefings in Europe, Asia, and the Americas along with formal celebrations in Columbus. The latter will include CAS recognition as a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society in June.

CAS Emerges As Global Leader In Substance-Based Information

From its roots as publisher of Chemical Abstracts, which began in 1907 as the work of mainly volunteer abstractors, CAS has evolved to provide the worlds largest and most comprehensive databases of chemical and related scientific information.

The organization makes its databases available through sophisticated search and analysis software for scientists in all facets of the research process and anyone engaged in intellectual property investigation. CAS services include the worlds leading search tools in use at universities around the globe. CAS editorial and scientific experts work in 50 languages to analyze, summarize, and thoroughly index the worlds chemistry related literature and patents. Scientists around the world rely upon the CAS Registry Number as the globally accepted standard for defining and describing a chemical substance.

In addition to journal literature, CAS indexes patents from 50 active patent-issuing authorities and makes information from the major patent offices available online with industry-leading timeliness.

Staying Ahead of the Information Explosion

CAS rate of indexing new scientific information reflects the worlds accelerated pace of research and discovery. In December 2006, CAS reported it had for the first time indexed and added to the CAS databases more than a million document records in a single year.

"Throughout the lifetime of Chemical Abstracts and the CAS databases, our records have mirrored the progress of research in chemistry and related sciences, said Matthew J. Toussant, CAS Vice President, Editorial Operations. "It took 30 years for CA to publish its first million abstracts. And now, more than a million records are expected to be indexed each year.  Covering all relevant science in the CAS databases is a mission responsibility we have always been committed to achieve."

Innovation in Information Tools

Since introducing the original printed Chemical Abstracts, CAS has continually launched new products and services, from some of the earliest computer files for batch-mode searching to CAS ONLINE. Additional products launched include STN, SciFinder, and new analytical tools such as STN AnaVist.

When online searching became the preferred means of accessing scientific information in the 1970s, it was virtually the exclusive domain of librarians and information professionals. Chemists, who had once used the printed Chemical Abstracts, became accustomed to referring their questions to intermediaries who had the required searching skills. CAS therefore found itself one step removed from the end-user scientists who ultimately benefited from CAS information. But with the advent of desktop computers and efficient networks, CAS recognized that a potential end-user revolution was in the offing. And so in the mid-1990s, they introduced SciFinder, client-server software with an appealing graphic interface - and this changed everything.

SciFinder revitalized CAS direct connection to research scientists by providing easy, point-and-click access to chemical information. The new intelligent desktop research tool was an immediate hit with scientists, because it permitted them to ask their own questions, get immediate answers, and apply the wealth of information in CAS databases to their daily work. Today, scientists at pharmaceutical, biotech, and chemical companies around the world use SciFinder as part of the process to explore research topics, browse scientific journals, and stay up-to-date on the latest scientific developments. An academic version of SciFinder for campus-wide access has become the fastest growing research tool among the worlds leading universities.

STN on the other hand is the only source of multiple databases covering intellectual property of chemistry and related sciences. It is the preferred source for patent information for examiners, information professionals, and business people around the globe. CAS compiles, with extraordinary currency, the patent literature of all relevant patent-issuing authorities.

A third offering that CAS has developed is Science IP, a consulting service employing chemists to provide contract searching to corporations and information professionals.

Together SciFinder, STN, and Science IP provide a comprehensive solution to enabling the access to the worlds chemical and related scientific information.

A Place in History

With its inclusive coverage of chemistry-related literature and patents, CAS has recorded the milestones of chemical discovery. Among the substance-related research studies reflected in Chemical Abstracts are abstracts on the invention of Bakelite, which sparked the development of the plastics industry in 1908; the therapeutic uses of insulin in the 1920s; the development of nylon in the 1930s; the description of the DNA double helix structure in 1953; and the discovery of buckyballssoccer-ball shaped moleculesfor which a Nobel prize was awarded in 1996.

The history of CAS began in 1895 when Arthur Noyes, a patriarch of a distinguished family of American chemists, founded the Review of American Chemical Research at MIT. Two years later, the Review became a part of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. William A. Noyes, Sr., a distant cousin of Arthur Noyes and editor of the Journal, argued that simply publishing these abstracts as a supplement of the Journal was not enough. As a result, the ACS began publishing Chemical Abstracts in 1907.

In 1909, CAS moved to The Ohio State University campus in Columbus and remained there for the next 56 years. Despite moving to increasingly larger office spaces on campus, Chemical Abstracts staff kept growing along with the scientific literature and outgrew the available space. By the time the organization became Chemical Abstracts Service, a separate operating division of the American Chemical Society in 1956, it required a new building. CAS finally moved off campus in 1965 to the site it now occupies, just north of the OSU campus.

CAS Today

CAS is integral to the mission of ACS, which is the worlds largest scientific society, a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research.

CAS now employs more than 1,300 people in Columbus and provides the world's largest and most current collection of chemical and related scientific information, including the most authoritative database of chemical substances, the CAS Registry, and CASREACT, the worlds largest reactions database. CAS combines these databases with advanced search and analysis technologies to deliver the most complete, cross-linked, and effective digital information environment for scientific research and discovery, including such products as SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar, STN, STN Express, and STN AnaVist^TM, among others.

View a timeline of CAS history.