CAS (formerly Chemical Abstracts Service) is a division of the

American Chemical 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 d ...

. It is a source of chemical information. CAS is located in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Print periodicals

''Chemical Abstracts'' is a periodical index that provides numerous tools such as SciFinder as well as tagged keywords, summaries, indexes of disclosures, and structures of compounds in recently published scientific documents. Approximately 8,000

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

technical report A technical report (also scientific report) is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and co ...

s, dissertations,

conference proceeding In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings is a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the conferen ...

s, and new

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

s, available in at least 50 different languages, are monitored yearly, as are

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

specifications from 27 countries and two international organizations. ''Chemical Abstracts'' ceased print publication on January 1, 2010.

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

Registry contains information on more than 130 million organic and inorganic substances, and more than 64 million protein and

nucleic acid sequence A nucleic acid sequence is a succession of Nucleobase, bases signified by a series of a set of five different letters that indicate the order of nucleotides forming alleles within a DNA (using GACT) or RNA (GACU) molecule. By convention, sequence ...

s. The sequence information comes from CAS and

GenBank The GenBank sequence database is an open access, annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide sequences and their protein translations. It is produced and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI; a part ...

, produced by the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. 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 A CAS Registry Number (also referred to as CAS RN or informally CAS Number) is a unique identification number assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), US to every chemical substance described in the open scientific literature. It inclu ...

, index name, and graphic representation of its chemical structure. The assignment of chemical names is done according to the

chemical nomenclature A chemical nomenclature is a set of rules to generate systematic names for chemical compounds. The nomenclature used most frequently worldwide is the one created and developed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The ...

rules for ''CA'' index names, which is slightly different from the internationally standard IUPAC names, according to the rules of

IUPAC The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

Products

CAS databases are available via two principal database systems, STN, and SciFinder.

STN

STN (Scientific & Technical Information Network) International is operated jointly by CAS and

FIZ Karlsruhe 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 prov ...

, and is intended primarily for information professionals, using a

command language A command language is a language for job control (computing), job control in computing. It is a domain-specific language, domain-specific and interpreted language; common examples of a command language are shell script, shell or batch programming ...

interface. In addition to CAS databases, STN also provides access to many other databases, similar to

Dialog Dialog is an online information service owned by ProQuest, who acquired it from Thomson Reuters in mid-2008. Dialog was one of the predecessors of the World Wide Web as a provider of information, though not in form. The earliest form of the Dial ...

SciFinder

SciFinder is a database of chemical and bibliographic information. Originally a

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...

application, a web version was released in 2008. It has a graphical interface, and can be searched for chemical structures and reactions as well as literature in chemistry and related disciplines. The client version is for chemists in commercial organizations. Versions for both the

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

MacOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

operating systems exist.

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 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. CODE ...

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

, and date of first issue (history) for a selected journal. Also included is its language of text and language of summaries. The range is from 1907 to the present, including both serial and non-serial scientific and technical publications. The database is updated quarterly. ''Beyond CASSI'' lists abbreviated journal titles from early chemical literature and other historical reference sources.

History

''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. 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 The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, including McPherson Laboratory and

Watts Hall Watts Hall was a building on the Ohio State University campus, in Columbus, Ohio, United States. The building was named after Arthur S. Watts, a former head of the Department of Ceramic Engineering, and former president of the American Ceramic Soci ...

. In 1965, CAS moved to a new site on the west bank of the

Olentangy River The Olentangy River is a tributary of the Scioto River in Ohio, United States. History It was originally called ''keenhongsheconsepung'', a Delaware word literally translated as "sharp tool river", based on the shale found along its shores. ...

, 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 The Columbus Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Columbus, Ohio. The oldest performing arts organization in the city, its home is the Ohio Theatre. The orchestra's current Executive Director is Denise Rehg. Ross ...

pop concerts. In 2009, the campus consisted of three buildings. In 1907,

William A. Noyes William Albert Noyes (November 6, 1857 – October 24, 1941) was an American analytical and organic chemist. He made pioneering determinations of atomic weights, chaired the Chemistry Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champ ...

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." CAS was an early leader in the use of computer technology to organize and disseminate information. 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 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

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. 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. 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. In 2022, CAS announced the release of almost half a million CAS registry numbers under an open license in thei
Common Chemistry
project.

References

External links

* {{Authority control American Chemical Society Chemical databases Chemistry journals Bibliographic databases and indexes 1907 establishments in Ohio Companies based in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area