>From a prior art standpoint, it would be very helpful to include the date
(and even time if possible) that the preprint was made available. Maybe you
could include a "Date Available" field.
Patents already have a well defined publication date, but journal issues can
be vague on publicaton date. I'm not sure if CAS even has a publication date
field for journal articles. Some journals have a specific publication date
for each issue, while others may just give a month or something similar that
is not definite regarding the publication date. With preprints however,
there is an actual point in time when the article is made public, and if its
possible to capture that data, it would be very useful.
Andy Berks
Merck & Co.
> ----------
> From: Shively, Eric[SMTP:eshively@CAS.ORG]
> Reply To: CHEMICAL INFORMATION SOURCES DISCUSSION LIST
> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 9:43 AM
> To: CHMINF-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
> Subject: CAS announces coverage of preprints
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> May 30, 2000
>
> CAS WILL NOW COVER "PREPRINTS" ON THE WEB
>
> CAS Expands Its Coverage of Scientific Publishing on the Internet
>
> COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 30, 2000- Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS),
> producer of the most authoritative compendium of
> chemistry-related information, has begun to abstract and index
> preprints, a new class of research report distributed on the Web
> in advance of or in lieu of formal publication. Adding this new
> type of document to CAS coverage is in line with CAS' traditional
> policy of making available to researchers the full range of
> publicly disclosed information in chemistry.
>
> CAS will monitor preprint servers in chemistry-related fields and
> begin indexing preprints posted in the year 2000. Abstracts and
> indexing for preprints will appear in CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS (CA) and
> CAplus and associated databases. The information will be
> accessible through all CAS electronic search services, including
> SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar, STN International, STN Express, STN
> Easy, STN on the Web, and CA on CD. CAS will process preprints
> as it does articles in traditionally published journals. CAS
> document analysts, who are themselves scientists, will summarize
> the content in concise abstracts and provide detailed indexing to
> lead researchers to relevant studies. Preprints will be
> distinquished from journal articles and other documents by a
> special field code.
>
> "CAS embraced the Internet and Web from the beginning as a
> ground-breaking new channel for scientific communication," said
> Dr. Matthew J. Toussant, CAS Director of Editorial Operations.
> "Just as we have covered 'electronic-only' journals for years, we
> will provide research pathways to this latest category of
> information exchange between scientists."
>
> CAS will continue to apply its usual criteria in selecting
> documents for coverage in CA. Web preprints reviewed by CAS
> scientists are those that
>
> - report new information of chemical or chemical engineering
> interest;
>
> - identify authorship, either personal or organizational;
>
> - are publicly available (whether free of charge, for a fee or
> through subscription)
>
> - are expected to have some relative permanence or continued
> accessibility through a citable electronic address;
>
> - are original publications.
>
> "CAS has always reflected the progress of research," said
> Toussant. "A significant number of studies are now appearing on
> Web preprint servers, and it is appropriate for CAS to include
> these records in the interest of providing the most comprehensive
> and current coverage of chemistry."
>
> CAS interprets "chemical" literature broadly to include
> chemistry-related papers in neighboring disciplines such as
> biomedicine, physics, and many others. Beyond the strictly
> chemical preprints, CAS expects many others appearing this year
> will meet CAS' subject criteria. Several thousand preprints in
> the chemical, biological/medical, materials science and
> environmental sciences are expected to be added to CAS databases
> during 2000. CAS estimates that the total number of preprints
> will account for less than 1% of the documents CAS will add to
> its databases this year.
>
> CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, is the world's
> leader in providing scientists online and Web access to
> chemistry-related research data. CAS produces the world's
> largest and most comprehensive databases of chemical
> information. This information is combined with sophisticated
> search and analysis software vital to new product and patent
> research, as well as academic research in the world's leading
> universities. The CAS databases include more than 19 million
> abstracts of chemistry-related literature and patents and 24
> million substance records. CAS publishes the print version of
> Chemical Abstracts (CA), related publications and CD-ROM
> services; operates the CAS Chemical Registry; produces a family
> of online databases; and offers the SciFinder desktop research
> tool. CAS operates STN International, a network of scientific
> and technical databases, in association with FIZ Karlsruhe in
> Germany and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation. The
> CAS Web site is at http://www.cas.org.
>
> - 30 -
> Eric Shively
> CAS
> eshively@cas.org
>
>
> --------
>
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