CINF E-News (ISSN 1559-7342)

Volume 9 Number 2Spring 2008

Edited by Beth Thomsett-Scott 

Table of Contents

Updates from New Orleans Meeting    Executive Committee minutes    Technical Sessions and Abstracts    Careers in Chemical Information Activities    Highlights from the ACS Council MeetingAward Announcements    CINF Meritorious Award Winner Announced - Bill Town    2008 Lucille M. Wert Scholarship to Huijun Wang    CINF Scholarship for Scientific Excellence Sponsored by Symyx WinnersLibrary Closings/Downsizing (Article)Call for Scholarship and Award Nominations    CINF Scholarship for Scientific Excellence Sponsored by Symyx Call    Applications Invited for CSA Trust Jacques-Émile Dubois Grants for 2009    2009 Herman Skolnik Award – Call for NominationsVendor Announcements    CAS’ Award-Winning Scifinder Scholar™ Now Serves 1500 Academic Institutions Worldwide    CAS’ New Scifinder® Enhances the Research Experience Via the WebPharma-Bio-Med Conference AnnouncementMembership in CINF

 Highlights and Updates from the New Orleans Meeting

 Executive Committee Minutes These will be posted within the next few weeks on  http://www.acscinf.org/html/min_exec.html 

Technical Sessions and Abstracts Information on the Technical Sessions and Meeting Abstracts from the New Orleans meeting can be found at http://www.acscinf.org/html/meetings1.html 

Careers in Chemical Information Activities At the Spring 2008 meeting in New Orleans, CINF sponsored a session on “Careers in Chemical Information”. The session was cosponsored by CHAL, PROF, COMP, CEPA, and WCC.  Six speakers told their stories, and how they obtained their careers in chemical librarianship, chemical information searching, chemoinformatics, public relations, science writing and patent law.  The session was well attended, and afterwards speakers and attendees had a lively discussion with refreshments sponsored by Chemical Abstracts Service. In the fall meeting in Philadelphia, the Chemistry and the Law Division will be sponsoring a session on Nontraditional Careers in Chemistry, which will include some chemical information careers.  In addition, CINF will be co-sponsoring a session on The Use of New Technologies in Finding Employment.  This session will talk about web sites, blogs, Facebook, LInkedIn, video interviews, Google Tools, personal branding, Second Life, and much more. Submitted by Dr. Lisa Balbes, Careers Committee Chair

 Highlights from the ACS Council Meeting in New Orleans The Council of the American Chemical Society met on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 in the Grand Ballroom of the New Orleans Marriott on Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. The meeting was opened at 8:00am with a resolution and moment of silence honoring recently deceased ACS Councilors. New Orleans Meeting Attendance SummaryTotal registration at the New Orleans meeting was 13,454.  This total included 6,652 regular attendees, 4,636 student affiliates, 1,383 exhibitors, 356 exhibit only registrants, and 427 guests. Selection of Candidates for President-ElectJosef Michl (University of Utah), Thomas J. Barton (Iowa State University), R. Stephen Berry (University of Chicago) and Joseph S. Francisco (Purdue University) were presented to Council as nominees for the Presidential election.  Council voted to select Josef Michl and Joseph S. Francisco as candidates for President-Elect for 2009. Highlights from Reports of the Presidential SuccessionPresident Bruce Bursten reported that four Technical Divisions are celebrating centennials this year: Agricultural and Food Chemistry (AGFC), Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (IEC), Organic Chemistry (ORGN) and Physical Chemistry (PHYS).  A successful presidential session on science education was co-sponsored with SOCED and CPT in New Orleans and one on the future of energy collaboration was co-sponsored with AIChE.  In Philadelphia, the theme of energy will be continued with a presidential event on global energy challenges.  ACS plans to implement an ACS Fellows program (similar to AAAS Fellows program), hopefully in 2009. President-elect Thomas Lane outlined his intended areas of emphasis:  education, relationships and outcomes.  He also announced a Dow Corning gift to establish a fund that will generate $30,000 per year to support programming during his three years of the presidential succession. 

Immediate Past-President Katie Hunt summed up her activities as supporting ACS strategic goals and including broad areas of education, collaboration, and innovation.  She also announced that the ACS Ambassadors will be renamed ACS Diversity Partners. Highlights from the ACS Board of DirectorsChair of the Board Judy Benham reviewed the ACS Strategic Plan for 2008 and beyond.  ACS faces three mega-challenges:  infrastructure, international, and global scientific challenge.  The Board has created two “board-only” committees to look at infrastructure challenges.  They also reviewed the status of international alliances.  Further, five specific areas of global scientific challenges were outlined:  sustainability of food/water/energy, preserving the environment, climate change, health, and education. Highlights from the Executive DirectorMadeleine Jacobs directed Council’s attention to the 40th anniversary of Project Seed. Actions of Council/VotingCouncil voted to approve the changes to Petition on Election Procedures for President-Elect and District Director (Bylaw V, Sec. 2, d and Bylaw V, Sec. 4, f). ACS Bylaws currently provide for a preferential ballot when three candidates run for President-elect or District Director.  When four or more candidates run, the Bylaws specify that a separate runoff election is required if no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast.  These runoff elections are expensive and delay the election results.  The approved petition proposed an election mechanism that provides for a preferential (ranked) ballot and an “instant” runoff.  If no candidate receives a majority (50% + 1) of the votes, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and the votes for the candidate indicated as the next-highest priority are redistributed among the remaining candidates.  This method is currently practiced in Ireland and Australia and is considered to be preferred to the separate runoff between the two highest vote getters  by Robert’s Rules of Order which states “…preferential voting is especially useful and fair in an election  by mail if it is impractical to take more than one ballot.  In such cases, it makes possible a more representative result than under a rule that a plurality shall elect.”  The Committee on Budget and Finance had already concluded that this petition will have a minor ($0 - $100,000) positive impact on the finances of the Society. Council also voted to approve a Petition on Election Procedures 2006, Part 2 (Bylaw V, Sec. 2, c and Bylaw V, Sec. 3, b).  This petition was put forth by the Committee on Nominations and Elections (N&E) in order to bring into alignment the petition candidate process and the election process for President-elect and all Director positions.  Currently, 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 noted that it is more logical to use a percentage rather than have to adjust the Bylaws on a periodic basis.  The approved change will implement a 0.5% requirement for President-elect and a 0.25% requirement for Director-At-Large.  The provisions for limiting signatures from a single Local Section and District reflect the current ratios, one-sixth and two-thirds, respectively. The net effect under the current membership will be to increase the signature requirement from 300 to 750 for President-Elect and from 300 to 375 for each of the Director-at-Large positions.  In the 2005 survey of Councilors and non-Councilors, 71% favored an increase in the number of signatures.The Committee on Budget and Finance stated that the above change in the Bylaws will have no impact on the Society’s finances.Council also voted to approve increasing member dues to $140.  After extensive discussion, the motion to change the distribution formula for Division funding was recommitted and will be presented again for Council action in Philadelphia at the Fall 2008 meeting.  Council also voted to approve the “Academic Professional Guidelines” and to change the name of the University of Kansas Local Section to Wakarusa Valley Local Section.And finally, Council voted to change Membership Categories and Requirements to change Associate Member category to Student Member for undergraduate applicants and to change Associate Member category to Member for those with bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and related subjects, associate’s degrees in chemical technology or related subjects, and qualified pre-college chemistry teachers. The approved petition represents a comprehensive revision of the qualifications required for membership and affiliate status in the Society.  It is in response to a growing consensus that current membership requirements are too narrow and, while indicating the Society’s focus on chemistry, would make anyone with a bachelor’s degree or higher in chemistry or in a related field of natural science,

engineering, technology or science education eligible for membership.  In addition, anyone with an associate degree in chemical science or a related field of technology would also be eligible as would any qualified pre-college chemistry teacher not able to meet the primary requirement.  These changes permit all current Associate members to become full members and the Associate category would be eliminated.  There are no changes in the various dues categories for members or affiliates of the Society. There is also a growing consensus that undergraduate students should be eligible for full membership as they are in most of ACS’ sister organizations.  The Associate member category would be replaced with a Student member category, giving student members all rights except for holding national office.  They will also be able to vote in national elections.  Divisions and Local sections will have the option of allowing students to serve as officers except as Councilors and Alternate Councilors.  Divisions and Local Sections will also have the option of waiving or discounting student member dues. The term “Associate Member” will be replaced by “Student Member” in almost every place that it occurs in the ACS Constitution and Bylaws. Because student members will be full members, the Bylaws will be codified to include the dues that will be assessed (these are currently set by the Board with Council approval).  The changes will reflect as closely as possible the current dues assessment for student affiliates ($38 with C&EN, $23 without C&EN).  The 20% allocation of the total dues pool to Local Sections and Divisions would be applicable to Student member dues.  The impact of voluntary membership in Divisions is difficult to predict.  There are over 10,000 members of Student Affiliate Chapters, but not all choose to pay to become student affiliates.  The maximum possible increase in Local Section and Division funding from Student member dues  would be about $46,000 (based upon 2007 rates), of which 55% ($25,300) would go toward allocation to Local Sections and 45% ($20,700)  toward allocation to Divisions.  This would represent about a 1.5% increase over current allocation amounts. The changes in the number of members could, in the long-term, affect the Councilor divisor and ultimately the number of Councilors of each Division and Local Section.  This would not happen until 2012 as the divisor has already been set for 2008 – 2011 and at that time a divisor will be set to have a minimum impact on Council size. There is a provision in Bylaw XII establishing a discount for students who are members, but it is only used by graduate students.  This discount will now be termed the graduate student discount.  Undergraduates would now qualify as student members with a much greater discount. The Committee on Budget and Finance reported that these changes will have a minor negative impact on the Society’s finances ($0 - $100,000). 2008 Projected FinancesThe Society is expected to experience a net contribution of $9.6 million from operations, with a budget variance favorable of $2.2 million. Other HighlightsNominations and Elections (N&E) announced that there would be guidance documentation on their website to assist Local Sections and Divisions with electronic balloting.  Divisional Activities Committee reported that carbon dioxide, national security, and globalization will be the themes for the DC meeting; other future meeting themes are green chemistry, and chemistry for combating disease.  A recommendation was made from the Council floor to Meetings and Expositions that the sustainability of National Meetings be promoted (better recycling at hotels and convention centers, less paper printed, etc.).  ACS has launched a Member Network option and all ACS members are encouraged to participate.  This Member Network may eventually provide functionality that would serve as a replacement to Division Member Directories. Respectfully submitted,

Andrea Twiss-BrooksBonnie Lawlor

CINF Councilors May 2, 2008 

Pictures CINF Reception: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregbanik/sets/72157604453247480/

Martin Hicks & Josef EblmaierGuenter Grethe & Rene Deplanque

Johnny Gasteiger, Rene Deplanque, & Wendy Warr

Rene Deplanque, Jon Goodman, Peter Rusch, David Wild, & Grace Baysinger 

Terry Stouch & Wendy Warr

 

ACS Exhibition: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregbanik/sets/72157604478046313/  

Kindly submitted by Greg BanikBio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.Informatics DivisionTwo Penn Center Plaza, Suite 8001500 John F. Kennedy Blvd.Philadelphia  PA  19102USA

Phone:  +1 267 322 6952Fax:  +1 267 322 6953Web:  http://www.knowitall.com

Thanks to everyone else who submitted photos also. We've been having a great deal of difficulty mounting pictures and have decided not to add extra ones this time.

 Award Announcements

 

 2008 CINF Meritorious Award to Bill Town

 On behalf of the Awards Committee of the Division of Chemical Information (CINF) of ACS it gives me great pleasure to congratulate Bill Town 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 seventh 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 New Orleans.  The award will be presented to Bill at the divisional luncheon at the 236th National ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. Bill has a long and impressive history with CINF and is approaching 30 years as a member. His involvement in divisional activities started with being a member of the Publication Committee (1993-1996). As member of the Program Committee (1989-1992 and 1996-1998), his interest was primarily on the program level, organizing symposia on various topics and speaking at many technical sessions at national meetings of the American Chemical Society. At the recent ACS meeting in New Orleans, held jointly with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), he co-organized four sessions on the topic “Engineering the Transition to Bioeconomy”. In recent times, Bill took on a more active role in governance.  He is currently Alternate Council (2006-2008), He served the Division as Chair-Elect (1999), Chair (2000), and Past-Chair (2001). In addition, he chaired the Awards Committee (2002-2005) and the Nominating Committee (2001). Bill’s continued and varied contributions and strong commitment to CINF benefit all of us.  This is even more astonishing since it involves travel from his home in England.  We hope for many more years of Bill’s contribution to the Division. Just a reminder, the deadline for nominations for the 2009 award is March 1, 2009. Guenter GretheChair, CINF Awards Committee 

2008 Lucille M. Wert Scholarship to Huijun Wang 

The scholarship administered by the Division of Chemical Information of the American Chemical Society consists of a $1,500 grant and a complimentary one-year CINF membership.  It is designed to help persons with an interest in the field of Chemical Information to pursue graduate studies in Library Information or Computer Science.  The 2008 award will be presented to Huijun Wang.  Huijun has a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Peking University and a M.S. degree in Chemical Informatics from Indiana University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemical Informatics at the same university.  Her thesis deals with the development of new techniques for the next generation of searching tools.  She has several publications to her credit and presented some of her work at three National ACS meetings.  In 2007 she received the CINF- ElsevieMDL Scholarship Award for Scientific Excellence. She spent the summer of 2007 at DowAgroScience as a Software Engineering Statistician Intern.Congratulations to Huijun and much success in her future career. The deadline for nominations for the 2009 award is February 1, 2009. Guenter GretheChair, CINF Awards Committee  

CINF Scholarship for Scientific Excellence Sponsored by Symyx At the 235rd ACS National Meeting in New Orleans, April 6 – 10, 2008,  the Division of Chemical Information announced the winners of the CINF-Symyx Award for Scientific Excellence.  Three scholarships valued at $1,000 each were awarded at the Divisional luncheon to Hina Patel and Jenny Wan-Chen Chen, both of the University of Sheffield, and Zunnan Huang, University of Missouri. The award winners presented posters of their work at the Sci-Mix session.

 The title of their presentations were “Structure Generation using Reaction Vectors” (H. Patel), “Bias Data Fusion with Turbo Search to Improve Chemical Similarity Searching” (J.W. Chen), and “Conformational Selection of Protein Kinase A Revealed by Flexible-Ligand Flexible-Protein Docking”. The international scholarship program of the Division of Chemical Information is designed to reward graduate and post-graduate students in chemical information and related sciences for scientific excellence and to foster their involvement in CINF. The scholarship program was initiated in 2005 and the awards funded by different organizations will be given out at each ACS National Meeting. Guenter GretheCINF Awards Chair 

 

Library Closings/Downsizing

“Everything you need to know is on a computer”.  Sound familiar?  Just recently?  I first heard it 35 years ago at the dawn of the online information age.  Fortunately, it was from an unenlightened customer, and not a manager.  Substitute “Internet” for “computer” 10-15 years ago?  Remember disintermediation?  (I do, from first hand experience.)  As Yogi Berra supposedly said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” A couple of weeks late for National Library Week, C&E News had an article (4/28/08, p. 30-31) titled “Vanishing Books”, with the subtitle, “With the advent of digital information, traditional corporate libraries are shrinking or disappearing entirely.”  The status of libraries at three companies, Air Products & Chemicals (APCI), Pfizer (both closed) and Rohm and Haas (shrinking, but wisely) are described.  If you’ll tolerate the musings of an non-librarian veteran of the library/information wars, I’d like to explore the phenomenon more in depth than the shallow description in C&EN, where the author of the article apparently didn’t ask the best questions. There’s no question that a large number of resources (increasing exponentially?) are readily available on the Net or in digital form.  However, a number of resources have not yet been digitized or are otherwise not as handy to use as the original bound or paper copies.  In addition, the librarians interviewed pointed out that they typically no longer had ownership of the new resource formats, in contrast to their ownership of the print versions. In addition, the libraries in question are described as “corporate libraries”, with vague distinction between business libraries and technical/research libraries.  At APCI, the two libraries had been merged earlier before the demise of the merged operation.  At Pfizer, 7 libraries were consolidated 5 years ago, but the mission of the libraries was not specified.  The library described at Rohm and Haas is the central library at the research center.  I make this distinction because I feel that the needs of the customers of business and technical libraries differ. Pfizer sent some printed material (presumably not available in digital form) to Infotrieve ( http://www4.infotrieve.com/products_services/library_solutions.asp  ), a document retrieval company.  They maintain STM (Science, Technology & Medical Library) a consortium of out-sourced technical libraries that digitizes information and provides online delivery (no further information available).  Presumably, this delivery is on demand and has a unit cost for each request (i.e., no longer “free” and at “arms reach”). Other responders mentioned library closings at Genetic.  Another (a vendor) said that the library at Cytec was cut a few years ago but reinstated when the cut was deemed a mistake.  Through my consulting contacts, I’m familiar with several library closings or drastic reductions due to mergers and buyouts. 

Edlyn Simmons said that there have been two library reorganizations in the last six years at Procter & Gamble, the first described at an SLA meeting.  Due in some part to lack of demand (low visitation figures), twenty two libraries were reduced to “a handful”.  Some of the resources found new homes in uncatalogued, departmental reading rooms, but usage is low. Library closing is not limited to “corporate” libraries.  Fred Stoss, SUNY Buffalo, reminded me of the spate of library closing in the government sector.  To quote: “ALA created a Federal Libraries subcommittee of the Committee on Legislation to deal with severe funding cuts, reductions in services and staff, massive negative restructuring and closing of Federal libraries.  In the past ALA, SLA, AALL, and ARL have dealt with a reduction in the EPA Library Network that saw the closing of three regional libraries, the EPA Headquarters Library and the OPPT Library and its chemistry library collection, loss of entire collections, fabrications about the extent of digitizing library resources, and reduction in the services provided.

”In recent weeks we have heard of the loss of the education and training programs of the National Library of Medicine's National Center for Biotechnology Information, and massive cuts in the National Library of Medicine. There have been closing of SOME National Laboratory libraries, deep cuts in the National Biological Information Infrastructure, closing of libraries on military base libraries.” Stephanie Schulte, Indiana/Purdue Fort Wayne, said that library downsizing is also taking place in the hospital library community.  However, she reports that Melinda Orebaugh, Gunderson Lutheran Hospital library, LaCrosse, WI, has her library growing rather than shrinking. In the academic sphere, I get the impression that the main phenomenon has been consolidation of libraries, not the closing of all libraries on a given campus.  As a former lab chemist, I can empathize with the distress in the closing and consolidation of chemistry department libraries although I also appreciate the administrative reasons for doing so.  Grace Baysinger reminded me of a recent ACS symposium on the topic and cited this URL for some of the papers:  http://www.istl.org/05-fall/index.html Roger Beckman, Indiana University, reports that his Life Sciences Library will be severely downsized (presumably, his chemistry library is intact but evolving).  Three of four floors will be converted to microbiology labs.  Two floors of bound journal and all but 5000 circulating books will be moved to storage.  Of course, the high percentage of electronic journals makes this possible but the effect on the response of the students and researchers is yet to be seen. Cost reduction would seem to be the driving force for any library “right-sizing”, to use recent business argot that sounds better than down-sizing.  Well managed, which it always isn’t, right-sizing does often have a more favorable outcome. Funding of any library makes a big difference in its management and fate.  In the past, information services centers, co-housed and co-managed along with the library, commonly had cost recovery policies and the library functions were funded on allocation of overhead.  Both policies are like a two edged sword.  “Overhead” is possibly more liable to cuts in business down cycles (especially if cost recovery policies are piled onto what are obviously overhead functions), but if customers are pressured to cut back on requests, the necessity of cost recovery puts the service providers in peril.  If the customers are running scared, no amount of valid justification of library and information services to the organization’s business will be successful in preserving the functions of information on library staff.  They become too expensive and therefore redundant. No mention is made in the C&EN article of the meteoritic rise of end-user programs and services like SciFinder, Web of Science, and the integrated desktop tools available to researchers.  This phenomenon, along with the explosion in availability of digitized data and information is a primary reason for the feasibility of any library reduction.  Of course, end-user services also need good management (including education of the users) to be truly effective on both the individual and corporate levels.  There is also no mention of patent information services at the three companies The article also tends to blur the functions of library and information services, especially in the contributions of the spokespersons for APCI and Pfizer.  One hopes that the reduction in physical

resources is counteracted by increased services to customers, although this might prove difficult with reduced staff. Of the three companies described, Rohm and Haas (and Susan Jones) is in the best position.  The R&H library is evolving away from print, condensing its collection.  However, information services are enhanced and distribution is more facile with digital resources.  There has been “no significant staff reduction” and staff and their functions are also evolving to meet the needs for services.  Jones mentions that search tools provide their own browsing and discovery functions.  Old-timers like me will agree with this but feel that classic browsing provides its own rewards and probably never will be replaced in all aspects. Cara Schatz, Director of PR at SLA, was also interviewed for the article.  She stresses the importance of people and services over and above facilities.  She also mentions “’embedded librarians’, information management professionals who are members of business teams.”  This may be more feasible for librarians and information professionals in the business side of the operation, but in many sci/tech organizations, such acceptance is predicated on scientific and technical background of the information provider.  Even if this is the case (a scientist operating as an informational professional), acceptance is difficult or even non-existent due to turf wars, budgets, etc. Ironically, on the day I began writing this article, the cartoon “Non Sequitur” for the day showed a newsstand with the sign, “Today in the Times.  Print media isn’t dead!  Go to our website for the whole story” (C ’08 Wiley Ink, Inc.).  Plus ca change, … Bob BuntrockBuntrock AssociatesOrono, ME 

Calls for Scholarship and Award Nominations

CINF Scholarship for Scientific Excellence Sponsored by Symyx

The scholarship program of the Division of Chemical Information (CINF) of the American Chemical Society (ACS) funded by Symyx is designed to reward graduate and postdoctoral students in chemical information and related sciences for scientific excellence and to foster their involvement in CINF. 

Up to five scholarships valued at $1,000 each will be presented at the 237th ACS National Meeting in Salt Lake City, March 22 – 26, 2009.  Applicants must be enrolled at a certified college or university, and they will present a poster during the Welcoming Reception of the division on Sunday evening at the National Meeting.  Additionally, they will have the option to also show their poster at the Sci-Mix session on Monday night.  Abstracts for the poster must be submitted electronically through OASYS.To apply, please inform the Chair of the selection committee, Guenter Grethe at ggrethe@comcast.net that you are applying for a scholarship. Submit your abstract at http://oasys.acs.org/acs/237nm/cinf/papers/index.cgiby clicking on Scholarship Award Posters. To enter your abstract, just follow the instructions.  The deadline for submitting an abstract to OASYS is October 1, 2008.  Additionally, please send a 2,000-word abstract describing the work to be presented in electronic form to the Chair of the selection committee by January 15, 2008.   Any questions related to applying for one of the scholarships should be directed to the same e-mail address.Winners will be chosen based on contents, presentation and relevance of the poster and they will be announced during the reception.  The contents shall reflect upon the student’s work and describe research in the field of cheminformatics and related sciences. Winning posters will be marked “Winner of Symyx-CINF Scholarship for Scientific Excellence” at the poster session. Submitted by Guenter Grethe, CINF Awards Chair

About Symyx

Symyx Technologies, Inc. is the scientific R&D integration partner to companies in the life sciences, chemicals, energy, electronics and consumer products industries. With scientific R&D under tremendous economic and technical pressure, we help companies reduce R&D risk and enhance R&D productivity to help them bring more and better products to market quickly and cost-effectively. Our integrated technology platform combines Symyx Software (electronic laboratory notebooks, content, laboratory logistics and analysis), Symyx Tools (software-driven integrated workflows) and Symyx Research (collaborative research and directed services) to support the entire R&D process. In October 2007, Symyx acquired MDL Information Systems, Inc., a leading provider of innovative informatics software, databases and services that accelerate successful scientific R&D by improving the speed and quality of scientists’ decision making. Information about Symyx, including reports and other information filed by Symyx with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is available at www.symyx.com.  

Applications Invited for CSA Trust Jacques-Émile Dubois Grants for 2009 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 2009. 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;

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 24, 2008.  Successful applicants will be notified by December 19, 2008. 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.  

 2009 Herman Skolnik Award – Call for Nominations The ACS Division of Chemical Information established this Award to recognize outstanding contributions to and achievements in the theory and practice of chemical information science. The Award is named in honor of the first recipient, Herman Skolnik. By this Award, the Division of Chemical Information is committed to encouraging the continuing preparation, dissemination and advancement of chemical information science and related disciplines through individual and team efforts. Examples of such advancement include, but are not limited to, the following: · Design of new and unique computerized information systems;· Preparation and dissemination of chemical information;· Editorial innovations;· Design of new indexing, classification, and notation systems;· Chemical nomenclature;· Structure-activity relationships; and· Numerical data correlation and evaluation.· Advancement of knowledge in the field The Award consists of a $3000 honorarium and a plaque. The recipient is expected to give an address at the time of the Award presentation. In recent years, the Award Symposium has been organized by the recipient. Nominations for the Herman Skolnik Award should describe the nominee's contributions to the field of chemical information and should include supportive materials such as a biographical sketch and a list of publications and presentations. Three seconding letters are also required. Nominations and supporting material should be sent by email to Guenter Grethe at ggrethe@comcast.net. Paper submissions are no longer acceptable. The deadline for nominations for the 2009 Herman Skolnik Award is June 1, 2008. Guenter Grethe, CINF Awards Chair 

 Vendor Announcements

 CAS’ Award-winning SciFinder Scholar™ Now Services 1500 Academic Institutions Worldwide COLUMBUS, Ohio – CAS announced today that SciFinder Scholar, the leading scientific research tool for academia, has registered its 1500th subscriber. SciFinder Scholar is now in 90% of all universities worldwide granting a minimum of a 4-year degree in chemistry. This milestone was reached as Kean University in Union, New Jersey adopted SciFinder Scholar to serve the science research needs of its faculty and students. Launched in 1998 by Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), SciFinder Scholar is an online research tool that allows college students and faculty to access CAS’ databases of disclosed chemistry and related information from multiple scientific disciplines, including biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, materials science, agricultural science and others.

 SciFinder Scholar has become the most widely adopted research tool of its kind, with installations at universities throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, North America and South America.

“SciFinder Scholar continues to demonstrate its widespread appeal as the scientific research tool of choice for Ph.D., master's and bachelor's level chemistry and related science education,” said Christine McCue, CAS Vice President, Marketing. “High quality content, timeliness of information and ease-of-use have proved to be a winning combination for SciFinder Scholar in both the academic and commercial settings. New chemistry graduates have come to expect to use SciFinder in the research enterprise.” Of the 1500 SciFinder Scholar subscribing institutions, approximately 800 offer the Ph.D. in chemistry, while over 700 offer M.S. or B.S. degrees in chemistry.  Harvard University was the first academic institution to subscribe to SciFinder Scholar, and the University of Manchester, England, became the first non-U.S. subscriber, both signing on in 1998. CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, 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. 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®, STN®, STN Express®, and STN® AnaVist™, among others. The CAS web site is www.cas.org.  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                         April 6, 2008 Contact:                                Eric Shively                           Robin Hepler

                                        CAS                                        Paul Werth Associates                                        614-447-3847                       614-224-8114

                                              eshively@cas.org                 rhepler@paulwerth.com 

CAS’ New SciFinder® Enhances the Research Experience Via the Web 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) now offers web access to its award winning SciFinder research tool. CAS announced and demonstrated the new SciFinder version at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in New Orleans, April 6, 2008. "Our customers will find using the new version of SciFinder an important complement to the familiar SciFinder research tool they already rely on," said Christine McCue, CAS Vice President, Marketing.  "The web version is for situations where web access is preferred and is a convenient option to the powerful client version which is well-established as ‘part of the research process’ in corporate, academic and government organizations around the world.” This new platform is especially designed for the Web and does not simply duplicate the look and feel of the current SciFinder product, which continues to be the leading tool for chemistry research.  The newest SciFinder experience will be offered to an expanding set of commercial, government and academic users as the product launch proceeds throughout the year.  "The web version of SciFinder is wonderful,” said Grace Baysinger, Head Librarian and Bibliographer at Swain Librarian of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. “Nothing needs to be downloaded and all of the power tools and features are readily visible." Today, SciFinder is “part of the process” at pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical companies and universities around the world. Scientists use SciFinder to explore research topics, browse scientific journals and stay up-to-date on the latest scientific developments. More information about the newest version of SciFinder can be found at www.cas.org/products/scifindr/sfweb/.

 View a demo at www.cas.org/products/scifindr/sfweb/sfwebflash.html. CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, 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 REGISTRYSM. 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, STN®, STN Express® and STN® AnaVist™, among others. The CAS web site is www.cas.org. 

Pharma-Bio-Med Conference 2008

http://www.pharma-bio-med.com/

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