2006 DIVISION ANNUAL REPORT
Division of: Chemical Information
Report Completed by (please include contact information):
Svetlana Korolev <>; 414.229.5045
______
Division Governance
1. Are all officer positions filled? Yes No
1a. If no, list the positions that are vacant:
1b. Please provide contact information for the Regional meeting coordinator:
David Martinsen <>
2. Were Division elections conducted according to Bylaws? Yes No
3. Are bylaws reviewed and up-to-date? Yes No
Provide date of last review: 8/20/2002
4. Is the Division Procedures Manual reviewed and up-to-date? Yes No
Provide date of last review: 03/2005.
5. What is the approximate number of currently active volunteers in your Division? (Volunteer is defined as a member who helps plan or organize a meeting or activity, serves on a committee, or is an elected official.)
fewer than 10 10-20 20-50 50-75 more than 75
5a. What is the percentage of new volunteers in your Division?
fewer than 10% 10-20% 20-50% 50-75% more than 75%
6. What is the current number of elected officials, councilors, alternate councilors, and committee chairs who:
6a. Have held other elected positions in the Division?
0 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 more than 12
6b. Have held other appointed positions in the Division?
0 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 more than 12
6c. Are in their first two years of service?
0 1 2-4 5-7 7-9 10 or more
7. Do candidates often run unopposed for office in your Division? Yes No
7a. Number of candidates who ran unopposed in your last Division election:
0 1 2 3 4 5 more than 5
7b. Please list all offices that ran only one candidate:
8. Does the Division recognize volunteers in some way? Yes No
8a. If yes, please check all that apply.
Certificates Gift Award Letter to volunteer Letter to Volunteer’s
Supervisor Recognition at an event Other (please indicate)
The CINF "Meritorious Service Award" recognizes outstanding service of its members to the division. The award (established in 1992) is presented to one or two individuals at the division luncheon during the fall ACS national meeting and announced in the division bulletin, newsletter and listserv. In 2006 CINF awarded the first Lifetime Membership to Dr. Val Metanomski for his significant work to the division (since 1975). Also, this year CINF was celebrating Dana Roth's 40 Years of Service as Caltech's Chemistry Librarian (see Fall 2006 Chemical Information Bulletin). In 2006 CINF included an "Open Meeting" in its technical program in order to recognize volunteers and solicit nominations from members for the functionary positiions. An official letter template to volunteers was created in 2006. CINF-Yahoo, a discussion group of division fuctionaries, recognizes volunteers informally.
9. Other than the normal succession from chair-elect to chair, how does your Division identify future leaders and get them into the leadership pipeline? Check all that apply.
Self-nominations Solicitation or Advertising Outreach to New Members
Look to Affiliate Committees (e.g. Local YCC, WCC, Technician Affairs, Student
Affiliates) Formal Succession Planning Formal Leadership Training Process
Arm-Twisting Other (please indicate)
The CINF Nominating committee, chaired by the Division Past Chair, identifies candidates for the positions of Chair-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, and Councilors. The division election ballot has an option for write-in nominations for each position, too. The CINF Executive Committee identifies divisional representatives for the ACS committees and initiatives, i.e. in 2006 Bill Town was nominated for the ACS Joint Board-Council Committee on Science Election, Guenter Grethe for the thematic programming, and Erja Kajosalo and Pamela Scott for strategic planning. Overall, the CINF committees serve for identifying and training future leaders of the Division. All committees have formal mentoring for the Assistant Chair position with the guidelines written in the CINF Procedures manual. The "Message from the Chair" published on the CINF website, bulletin and newsletter, invites all members to the long-range planning and committee meetings. In 2006 CINF established an "Open meeting" to solicit nominations for division functionary positions. The "Lucille Wert Scholarship" and "CINF Scholarships for Scientific Excellence" offered to 6-10 students per a year provide a link to potential future leaders. In other cases, a call for an opening is posted at CINF -Yahoo! and CHMINF-L.
The Division Functionaries are delegated by the CINF Executive committee to attend formal leadership training offered by the ACS, i.e. Erja Kajosalo, Chair Elect 2006, attended the ACS Leaders Conference on January 27-28, 2006; Patricia Kirkwood, CINF Treasurer 2005-06, attended the IRS workshop for Small and Mid-Sized Tax–Exempt Organizations, on April 25, 2006; Erja Kajosalo and Pamela Scott attended the ACS training on how to create a division strategic plan on May 19-20 and June 16-17, 2006; Leah Solla, CINF Assistant Program Chair 2005-06, and Guenter Grether, CINF representative for the ACS initiative on thematic programming, attended the ACS Division Summit on November 10-12, 2006.
Also, the Division social events provide additional opportunities for informal mentoring.
9a. Does the Division have a succession plan? Yes No
Communication with Members (check all that apply)
10. Newsletter In-Print Electronic On Web
Division Website Last Updated daily
Open Division Meeting Open Division Executive Committee Meeting
Other (please explain)
CINF publishes two newsletters "Chemical Information Bulletin" (print) and "CINF E-News" (open access online) before and after each ACS National meeting.
Highlight: The 2006 Fall issue of the Chemical Information Bulletin was mailed by the First Class Mail. The mail upgrade was done to ensure a fast and reliable delivery of the bulletin to all division members before national meetings. In this issue a survey about the bulletin was included. The survey was also posted at the division web site. The bulletin is being revised based on the survey results.
The division website serves as the main communication channel with members throughout the year. It is well organized, stable and updated frequently, featuring a message from the Chair, what's new and timeline alerts, newsletters, interviews, surveys, annual reports, executive committee minutes, and meeting presentations in several formats including MP3 (new in 2006).
Highlight: “50 Years of Chemical Information in the American Chemical Society: 1943-1993” by Dr. W. Val Metanomski became available digitally in HTML and PDF formats in the History section of the CINF web site. Please see: http://www.acscinf.org/docs/history/div_history_available.htm
Overall, CINF members communicate via E-mail, CINF-Yahoo! and CHMINF-L listservs. The membership is encouraged to attend the Long-range planning and committee meetings. Members can attend an Executive Committee meeting with permission of the Chair, which is usually granted.
Highlight: The CINF "Open Meeting" was held at the 2006 Fall ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, CA.
Programming
11. How far in advance does your division plan its programming?
1 year 2 year 3 years 4 years or more
11a. Spring National Meeting (check all that apply)
Organized Programming Cosponsored symposia with other ACS Units
Cosponsored Meeting with Other (non ACS) Organizations Held Workshops
Held Tutorials Other Activities
Almost all CINF symposia were cosponsored with other ACS units or other organizations. These include: "Social Software and Chemical Information" with CHED, "Careers in Chemical Information" with YCC, "The Nuts and Bolts of Scholarly Publishing" with YCC, "ThermoML: purpose, structure and applications" with I&EC, PHYS, "Advances in Pharmacophores and 3D Screening" with COMP, MEDI, "Advances in Reaction Informatics" with COMP, ORGN. CINF cosponsored "Dealing with Disaster: planning and recovery issues for businesses" for SCHB.
Highlight: The annual joint symposium of the CSA (Chemical Structure Association) Trust and the ACS CINF was held at the Spring National Meeting in Atlanta. This one-day symposium was dedicated to the latest developments in methods and to new applications of "De Novo Design and Synthetic Accessibility." The conference report was published in the CSA Trust Newsletter, Issue 13, at: http://www.csa-trust.org/
Highlight: The symposium "Social Software and Chemical Information" was recorded as an experiment in providing broader access to national meetings programs by the Chemical Information community. Both the slides (PDF & PPT) and the audio (MP3) from the presentations are provided on the division website. This program was featured by David Martinsen in the ACS Chemical Biology, 2006, 1(4), 195-107.
Highlight: The symposium "The Nuts and Bolts of Scholarly Publishing" was well attended (It could be useful for any ACS member). The program was featured in the Chemical & Engineering News, 2006, April 24, 46-47.
Note: The CINF Education committee did not hold a workshop at the 2006 national meetings due to the low attendance at national meetings in the previous years. The committee is redesigning a workshop in order to address the information needs of a broader audience than just librarians and to incorporate new modules, i.e. information resources in chemical engineering.
11b. Fall National Meting (check all that apply)
Organized Programming Cosponsored symposia with other ACS Units
Cosponsored Meeting with Other (non ACS) Organizations Held Workshops
Held Tutorials Other Activities
Highlights: The division made a record number of presentations (126 papers) for the Fall ACS National meeting in San Francisco. There were many programs featuring new developments, i.e. "Cyberinfrastructure in Chemistry, Information and Education: New Emerging Technologies" organized by the CINF-CIC collaborative working group, "Advances in Virtual High –Throughput Screening: New Approaches," "Library Watch: Hot New Areas in Chemistry," "Herman Skolnik Award Symposium," "Chemical Information and Organic Chemistry: The Road Ahead" sponsored by Beilstein Institute, "Rediscovery of Older Information," "Challenges in Structure Searching." There were many general interest papers for this meeting too.
The first CIC (Fachgrouppe Chemie-Information-Computer of the German Chemical Society) - CINF joint symposium "Cyberinfrastructure in Chemistry, Information, and Education: New Emerging Technologies" was organized at the 2006 Fall National Meeting. This day-long program brought together information scientists from Germany, the UK and the US. The conference report was published in the CSA Trust Newsletter, Issue 14, at: http://www.csa-trust.org.
The Herman Skolnik Award Symposium Hugo Kubinyi's talk was recorded and posted on the ACS web site.
The symposium "Rediscovery of Older Information" was recorded. Both the slides (PPT) and the audio (MP3) from the presentations are provided on the division website.
11c. Regional Meeting
Name and Date of Regional Meeting NERM, Binghamton,NY, October 5-7, 2006.
Organized Programming Cosponsored symposia with other ACS Units
Cosponsored Meeting with Other (non ACS) Organizations Held Workshops
Held Tutorials Other Activities
Explanation (please explain all checked activities)
Elizabeth Brown and Leah Solla organized a symposium on the "Future of Scholarly Communications" on October 6, 2006. The slides are posted on the CINF website, http://acscinf.org/dbx/mtgs/NERM/2006/index.asp. The session featured a range of speakers on a variety of factors influencing scholarly communication in the sciences, including the impact of web technology, open peer review, open access and other models of publishing and communication. The audience of 25 ranged from researchers and instructors to librarians and publishers. ACS president-elect 2006 Catherine Hunt joined the second half of the session to boost up her background in scholarly communications for her recent appointment to the UPenn library advisory board. Some excellent collegial discussion was enjoyed across the broad spectrum of talks.
The session and following lunch was sponsored by Chemical Abstracts Service, with a talk on the impact of SciFinder Scholar on academia. ACS Board chair James Burke joined the lunch session with the presidential candidates and was very much impressed by the academic view of chemical abstracts.
11d. Regional Meeting
Name and Date of Regional Meeting Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE), West Lafayette, IN, July 30 - August 3, 2006.
Organized Programming Cosponsored symposia with other ACS Units
Cosponsored Meeting with Other (non ACS) Organizations Held Workshops
Held Tutorials Other Activities CINF Membership Drive.
Explanation (please explain all checked activities)
Bartow Culp and Leah Solla, with the assistance of the CINF Education Committee, organized two sessions at the 2006 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education at Purdue. The presentations are posted on the CINF website, http://acscinf.org/dbx/mtgs/BCCE/2006/index.asp.
"Information Obstacle Course: Successfully Incorporating Chemical Information Into Your Curriculum" featured a shortened version of the CINF Education workshop presented by Patricia Kirkwood and followed by three case-studies by chemical instructors teaching chemical information in their undergraduate classes.
"Teaching Students about Copyright and Plagiarism" featured two copyright primers by Donna Ferullo, counsel at Purdue, and Eric Slater from the ACS copyright office. Two case studies emphasizing techniques for effectively teaching the concept of plagiarism to students, followed by an overview of cyberplagiarism issues and technological approaches by Purdue librarian Jennifer Sharkey.
BCCE is an excellent venue for CINF to promote the importance and education
of chemical information in the chemical and related scientific disciplines. CINF functionaries have organized several programs at past conferences and look forward to being involved in future BCCE programs.
11e. Regional Meeting
Name and Date of Regional Meeting
Organized Programming Cosponsored symposia with other ACS Units
Cosponsored Meeting with Other (non ACS) Organizations Held Workshops
Held Tutorials Other Activities
Explanation (please explain all checked activities)
11f. Local Section Meeting
Name and Date of Local Section Meeting
Organized Programming Cosponsored symposia with other ACS Units
Cosponsored Meeting with Other (non ACS) Organizations Held Workshops
Held Tutorials Other Activities
Explanation (please explain all checked activities)
11g. Local Section Meeting
Name and Date of Local Section Meeting
Organized Programming Cosponsored symposia with other ACS Units
Cosponsored Meeting with Other (non ACS) Organizations Held Workshops
Held Tutorials Other Activities
Explanation (please explain all checked activities)
11h. Other Programming (Non-ACS)
Name and Date of Other Programming 8th Quadrennial Tri Society Symposium / 3rd DASER Summit, Austin, TX, November 3, 2006.
Description of Other Programming (please explain activities)
The 8th Quadrennial Tri Society Symposium / 3rd DASER Summit "Shaping Things to Come" focused on questions of how libraries and information centers are shaping the digital information world, and how they are being shaped by it. Erja Kajosalo, CINF Chair-Elect 2006, contributed to the Tri Society Program Committee. The program featured invited talks from leaders in cutting-edge library and information centers, roundtable lunch (Included in registration) on topics of attendees' choice, and a panel of visionaries (http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM06/daser.html).