From: "Paul Heelis" Subject: New chemistry jobs vacancy site To

Subject: Re: ORGLIST: SciFinder Scholar ?
It is generally considered bad form (and possibly even illegal) to discuss

pricing on email lists. So I won't.

But in general, in the UK, CAS and its user friendly incarnation as

SciFinder are a relatively unknown quantity, certainly amongst students,

and nowadays also amongst staff.
Our lot here are delighted with Beilstein and "Web of Science",

the latter from ISI. Both are now capable of sub structure searches,

and both in the UK have nationwide licensing deals which means

essentially free delivery at point of use. This means we have been able

to incorporate both extensively into undergraduate and postgraduate

courses: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/local/it/

I am not privvy to any details, but my assumption is that the UK

has thus far been unable to negotiate equivalent deal with CAS for

eg SciFinder. Certainly, the standard rate for this service means very

few indeed can afford it.

>From my point of view, SciFnder appears to offer little that one cannot

get perhaps a little less conveniently from a number of other sources

--
Henry Rzepa. [phone] (Office) [phone] (Fax)

Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AY, UK.

http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/

__________________

Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 17:10:40 +0100

From: "Rzepa, Henry"

Subject: ORGLIST: Cost of Chemical information in general
Following up on the previous postings to this list about SciFinder, Crossfire, WOS, etc,

might I also comment on the apparent increasing costs of more "niche"

databases for organic chemistry.
About ten years ago, the debate was centered on the spiralling costs

of organic chemistry journals, especially those from commercial publishers.

The authors' argument was that they contributed the raw materials for free

(sometimes not even that, given page charges for eg colour etc),

and then has to watch whilst the "added value" cost from a publisher

spiralled upwards. Many libraries of course cancelled these journals.

Now perhaps it might be happening for other kinds of information.

There are certain types of chemical information that essentially come from

suppliers with monopolies, but which nevertheless originate in

freely donated information from authors. I will not name names,

but the annual "leasing" of this information per computer platforms

is a model which we may see a lot more of (Microsoft, which I

will name, are trying very hard to replace the outright purchase of

their operating system with an annual lease of it, and which would

require all traces of it to be removed from the computer if the lease

is not renewed).

I do hope that we do not end up in the same perverse situation

as expensive journals, where only a few depts can afford them,

and where one relies on interlibrary loans to browse articles

not affordable locally.

Perhaps, as originators of chemical information, we should start

charging for it rather than giving it away for free. And we will have

to decide how much "ease of use" and "added value" is worth

in the future. My concern is that the biggest losers will be students,

who will not be given access, and who will thus not gain access

to our chemical heritage.

--
Henry Rzepa. [phone] (Office) [phone] (Fax)

Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AY, UK.

http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/

__________________

Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 09:12:50 -0700

From: Jim Sims

Subject: Re: ORGLIST: SciFinder Scholar ?
We have had SciFinder here for a few months. I think that it is great!

One must remember that it is only the literature back a short time and for

some topics you will still have to do a hand search for the older

literature. It has been much better than Beilstein in the few instances I

have compared them. I still use science citation index but am using it

less and less. JIM

Professor Jim Sims

Department of Plant Pathology

University of California, Riverside

Riverside, CA 92521

Voice: 909 787 4127

FAX [phone]

__________________
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 14:55:20 -0200 (FST)

From: Jorge E de A Oliveira

Subject: ORGLIST: info
Dear all

Do you have any informations about the aldeides and ketonas, and

cappacity to oxidate the AgNO3 ??

Best regards

__________________________________

Jorge Eduardo de Araujo Oliveira

[e-mail]

You need t know Jesus Christ !!

__________________
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 10:28:10 -0700

From: Jim Sims

Subject: Re: ORGLIST: SciFinder Scholar ?
Henry:

I agree with all your sentiments! The University of California has a site

license for SciFinder and Science Citation Index (I found Beilstein for

free). I as a user am not charged. UC has also many journals on line so

that it is very convenient to do library searches in my office and print

out the articles I need. Most on line journals only go back a few years.

I for one dropped my subscription to Tet. Lett. and subscribed to Organic

Letters for just the reasons you mention. Publishers take our work which

we are too happy to give away (so that we can be promoted) and charge

outrageous prices to our libraries for subscriptions to the journals.

Something has to give in this situation. JIM
Professor Jim Sims

Department of Plant Pathology

University of California, Riverside

Riverside, CA 92521

Voice: 909 787 4127

FAX [phone]

__________________
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 18:33:39 GMT

From: "Yuehui Zhou"

Subject: None
I would like to follow the discussion about the comercialization of the

science information.

I think Mr. Henry Rzepa's concern is really true that "the biggest losers

will be students, who will not be given access, and who will thus not gain

access to our chemical heritage". Does this also mean the end of the

chemistry in special and the science in general? Has anyone read about the

debate about this in the news papers? I browsed a newspaper article citing

concerns of certain editor of a renowned science magazine (name forgotten).

As arts are becoming decoration and entertainment when they are subject to

the market, what will science become?

__________________
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 15:04:39 -0700 (PDT)

From: antonio regla

Subject: ORGLIST: RE: Thiosemicarbazide
Dear List Members:

Does anyone know the reference for a review of

thiosemicarbazide in organic synthesis? Thank you in

advance.

Sincerely,

Antonio Regla

__________________
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 23:19:16 +0100

From: "Darren Rhodes"

Subject: ORGLIST: Cost of Chemical Information ... continued
Ever since I discovered the ibm patent server

(http://patent.womplex.ibm.com) where patents can be obtained for $3.00 (as

far back as 1970); I have been disturbed by the lack of availability of

other sources chemical information.

The ibm patent server proves that someone is competent enough to make a

profit by making scientific information cheaply available to whoever wishes

to have it. So, why don't the chemical societies (RSC, ACS) provide a

similar service? The members of these societies have most probably paid for

this service many times over through their subscription fees. The authors

of the papers would most probably re-submit them (within reason) in a

suitable format for archiving/accessing. Yet, if we are not with some

academic institution or a large company, the members of these societies are

'information have nots'. To make matters worse; by charging so much for

making the literature available on line the societies are exposing

themselves to the criticism that they are racketeering.
I look forward to reading anyone else's opinion on this subject.
Darren Rhodes.

__________________

Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 09:47:12 +0200

From: Eva Horn Moeller

Subject: ORGLIST: Information - Revolution?
Dear all,

this is indeed a very important and critical issue, and I am wholly

surprised that I haven=B4t thought of this or have heard a discussion of

this kind yet.

It is in fact absurd that the scientific habit of sharing information

globally is taken advantage of by the publishers. Many libraries cannot

lift the economic burden of keeping e.g. CAS, and many departments, as

some of you mention, end up choosing between very slow and difficult -

or very expensive access to chemical info. Now, the publishers can set

the price at any level they choose, and the libraries just have to pay.

Maybe we have been too naive. Especially because we, the researchers, in

theory have the power to shut off the commercial scientific publishing

at very short notice.
I really feel that something should be done about this, and the

discussion ought to be taken to a higher level. What are the opinions of

e.g. the Royal Chemical Society and the American Chemical Society on

this issue?

Best regards,

Eva Horn Moeller

(MSc, PhD)

The Royal Danish School of Pharmacy

__________________
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 00:59:36 -0700 (PDT)

From: Eugene Leitl

Subject: ORGLIST: Information - Revolution?
Eva Horn Moeller writes:

> I really feel that something should be done about this, and the

> discussion ought to be taken to a higher level. What are the opinions of

> e.g. the Royal Chemical Society and the American Chemical Society on

> this issue?
The chemical society as a whole has allowed this to happen, by

tolerating the status quo for years, despite existiance of essentially

zero-cost publishing on the web. (For instance, consider the

electronical preprint archive for the physical community at

http://xxx.lanl.gov )
To counteract electronical publishing standard erosion as pushed by

the marketplace, a globally accepted open/noncommercial expandable

document publishing standard has to be defined (inasmuch chemical XML

doesn't qualify already), which has to have means of intelligent full

text, structure (unique SMILES or graphs) and (IR, MS, NMR) spectre

searching. These standards have to be implemented in OpenSource

software, putting the development into the hands of the users. All

this is not exactly rocket science so far.

This is all very doable, and in fact being partly done already, but is

being habitually ignored by the chemical community. Apart from

occasional laments, the comminity seems to like things just fine as

they are. Watching this happening for years is incredibly frustrating.

__________________
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 09:32:26 +0100

From: "Rzepa, Henry"