Cas Announces Expanded Linking And Online Access - Company Business and Marketing

Online Newsletter, May, 2000

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has announced several new enhancements and online access to its databases via STN International.

CAS will now include citations in CAS databases in SciFinder and the STN International network, increasing user ability to follow online research pathways from database records, to full-text documents, to the related documents they cite. During April, CAS made 20 million citations available online from articles in thousands of the most significant chemistry-related journals and patent records from the European, German, U.S., and World patent offices, starting from 1999. Users retrieving a bibliographic record in the CA or CAplus file will see cited references in a separate "reference" field that identifies the document's author, publication reference, and, if available, a link to the complete database record in the CAS files on STN. The full-text links that appear in CAS databases are provided through ChemPort, a feature incorporated into all CAS electronic search service interfaces, including STN Express, STN Easy, STN on the Web, SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar, and CA on CD. There is no additional charge to users for the linking. A list of those participating in ChemPort is available at http://www.chemport.org

CAS has also begun adding a wealth of substance information from combinational libraries to the CAS Registry database and will make an initial set of 200,000 compounds of biological and pharmacological interest searchable in the CHEMCATS database of commercially available chemicals, along with supplier information. -- Substances called "screening compounds" are synthesized in large quantities in combinational libraries and then screened - or tested - for desired biological or pharmacological properties. The substances are of interest to pharmaceutical companies as potentially valuable sources of new drugs. CAS has announced that they are making this new substance information available for online access in two steps: (1) During April CAS began adding approximately 200,000 screening compounds to the CHEMCATS file of commercially available substances; these are substances already registered by CAS and newly identified as screening compounds through a search of the CAS Registry; (2) Over the next few years, CAS will add millions of additional screening compounds to the CAS Registry and CHEMCATS databases, including new substances that will be assigned CAS Registry Numbers. The newly added screening compounds will be available for searching through all CAS electronic services including STN Express with Discover, STN Easy, STN on the Web, SciFinder, and SciFinder Scholar.

Several new developments were also announced, strengthening ChemPort's position as the largest collection of operational links from scientific database records to full-text journal articles and patents on the Web. -- With the newly added publications from major publishers - the American Physical Society and Institute of Physics - along with EBSCO, ChemPort connects users to a total of 1,887 journals on the Web. CAS regularly adds more full-text, research pathways to the network. EBSCO subscribers who are CAS and STN customers now have access to a new icon that allows them to view electronic articles from the 82 publishers served by EBSCO. An automatic authentication feature makes full-text access very fast and convenient for EBSCO users.

For further information contact: CAS, STN International, 2540 Olentangy Road, P.O. Box 3012, Columbus, OH 43210. Telephone: (800) 753-4227 or (614) 447-3731. Fax: (614) 447-3713. URL: http://www.cas.org In Europe contact STN Service Center Europe, c/o Fach-informationszentrum, Energie, Physik, Mathematik GmbH, D-7500 Karlsruhe 1, Postfach 2465, Germany. Telephone: ( 49) 7247-808-513. Fax: ( 49) 7247-808-259. URL: http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de In Japan contact STN International, c/o The Japan Information Center of Science and Technology (JICST), 5-2, Nagatacho 2 chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100, Japan. Telephone: ( 81) 03-581-6411.