ACCESS | Asia 's Newspaper on Electronic Information Product & Service

March 2007 No.60

CAS indexes a million documents in 2006

International output of scientific literature and patents continues to grow

Chemical Abstracts Service reported it has for the first time indexed and added to the CAS databases more than a million document records in a single year, reflecting the world wide acceleration of scientific research and patents. CAS announced this achievement on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the organization and Chemical Abstracts™, which was first published in January 1907. As the world's most authoritative scientific information resource, CAS' records reflect dynamic research and patenting activity worldwide, as the United States still leads but the Asian powerhouses grow stronger.

CAS database statistics for 2006 indicate the international distribution of the 1,016,669 publications indexed this year:

Languages of Publication: 50
Top 3
1.  English: 68.1%
2.  Chinese: 13.1%
3.  Japanese: 10.3%

Countries of Origin: 194
Top 3
1.  U.S.: 19.4%
2.  China (PRC): 17.6%
3.  Japan: 16.6%

Patents from 50 issuing authorities accounted for 24.4 percent of the publications, but contained more than 50 percent of the new chemical substance information recorded by CAS. The greatest number of publications were articles from CAS' extensive journal coverage in chemistry and related science, for which CAS monitors more than 9,500 titles. Additional sources included conference proceedings, symposia and other documents.

"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 we have now exceeded that total in a little less than one year. This achievement dramatically illustrates the rapid pace of research occurring worldwide."

CAS products and search services are now used by scientists, students, research librarians and patent authorities in 100 countries around the globe. "Our comprehensive database of chemistry and related scientific information is an invaluable resource," said Catharina Maulbecker, CAS Vice President of marketing and sales. "The added value of the STN® and SciFinder® search tools enables the scientific community to apply the information to full advantage as they build upon this century of knowledge." More on CAS here.