FROM LABORATORY TO INFORMATION EXPLOSIONS ... THE EVOLUTION OF CHEMICAL INFORMATION SERVICES AT ISI

An autobiographical account of Eugene Garfield's involvement in chemical information systems. This paper traces his personal evolution from laboratory chemist transformed into an information scientist who combined a knowledge of structural linguistics and information technology into an algorithmic system for identifying molecular formulas in the literature.

Recognizing the shortcomings of traditional abstracting and indexing systems, like Index Medicus and Chemical Abstracts, he launched Current Contents , Index Chemicus and Science Citation Index were designed to provide timely, weekly, and highly specific retrieval of chemical information.

The experience in locating and coding the steroid literature for the U.S. Patent Office led to a variety of chemically based services dealing with new compounds and intermediates as well as graphical presentation of chemical formulas and reactions.

The Index Chemicus Registry System was the first to use the Wiswesser Line Notation which became a standard in the pharmaceutical field. This eventually led to Current Chemical Reactions Database and the Reaction Citation Index.

As a young B.S. chemist in 1949 at Evans R&D, a chemical consulting firm, I spent days in the lab measuring the viscosity of potential shampoo products. One day I was asked to summarize a meeting held with a client investigating substitutes for natural products imported from Asia. Someone noticed in my resume that in high school I had learned typing and other office skills. And on my previous job, since I couldn't fine one as a chemist, I worked as a sales clerk at LaSalle University. This provided free tuition to attend classes in Gregg shorthand and Stenotype.

Then I received a call from my cousin, Sid Bernhard. There was an opening for a lab assistant in the laboratory of Professor Louis P. Hammett where Sid was doing his doctorate¹. In Hammett's lab I had the job of synthesizing a long series of esters needed to test theories of acid-base catalysis. One day, after months of seemingly endless lab work, I discovered a closet outside the lab in Havemeyer Hall. Here was where decades of graduate students had deposited thousands of synthesized compounds. When I discovered that some were those I had to produce, I decided to search this collection before doing another synthesis from scratch. And I soon learned the value of searching the literature for the same reason.

Professor Hammett was editor of the McGraw Hill chemistry book series. His excellent personal library included a complete set of Chemical Abstracts. However, by the time of my second laboratory explosion, I decided to pursue a different career path. Using my secretarial skills, I applied for a post as chemical secretary at the Ethyl Corporation. To be interviewed, I attended the 75^th anniversary meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in New York City in March 1951. By accident, I stumbled into the sessions of the Division of Chemical Literature where I met James W. Perry. He introduced me to Dr. Sanford Larkey at Johns Hopkins University (1951-53). Within a few months I was employed at the Welch Medical Library. I have often stated that this research experience eventually led to the establishment of the Institute for Scientific Information². It is significant that when he was asked for a reference, Professor Hammett told Dr. Larkey that "Garfield is not particularly imaginative but a very hard-working fellow," -- just what Larkey wanted³.

At Johns Hopkins University I became steeped in the details of Chemical Abstracts and other abstracting services and served as a volunteer abstractor of Spanish pharmacology papers. As the Welch Medical Project chemist, I kept up with a variety of chemical information activities. It was there that I met most of the information pioneers who were the backbone of the American Documentation Institute⁴. Having worked on the chemical nomenclature used in Medical Subject Headings (MESH) and understanding the need for new approaches to retrieving chemical information at the Welch Project, I was mentally prepared to meet challenges in that arena. I attended Library School from 1953 to 1954. That is when I wrote my primordial paper on "Citation Indexes for Science" published in 1955 in Science^5a, 5b. Within one year I also published a paper on searching chemical patents using citation indexes⁶. This first Patent Citation Index was based on a sample file of several thousand patents supplied to me by Marge Courain of Merck in Rahway. She had been a classmate at Columbia University School of Library Science.

In the summer of 1954 I went to work for SK&F Labs in Philadelphia as a consultant. Within a year I began Current Contents of Management publications. Then, in 1956 I began Current Contents of Pharmaco-Medical, Chemical & Life Sciences. Miles Labs was the first company to use this weekly product and soon was followed by others who paid $1500 per year for 25 copies. In 1958 Current Contents was made a subscription service at $100 per year for industrial and government institutions and $50 per year for academics. The impact of Current Contents has essentially been ignored by those who discuss major advances in the history of scientific information processing. But the timing of Current Contents was, in fact revolutionary. It had been unheard of to deliver indexed information weekly.

In 1958, since I was an independent, private information consultant, Robert A. Harte of Merck who chaired a committee of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA), asked me to perform a contract to index all new steroid compounds reported in the literature. The data were to be delivered to the U.S. Patent Office which was represented by Don Andrews. His group of patent examiners would test the feasibility of conducting patent searches using IBM punched cards. The scanning and coding work on this contract led to my recognition that it would be possible, algorithmically, to locate and identify newly reported compounds. This eventually led to the organization of the Index Chemicus in 1959 and its launch in 1960. The first issue was dedicated to my mentor at SK&F, Ted Herdegen, who died that year⁷.

There are several fundamental points which need to be emphasized in the new approach ISI took to handling chemical information.

First, the recognition in 1958 that a systematic chemical name could be algorithmically converted to a molecular formula and subsequently to a line notation.

Secondly, the recognition that synthetic chemistry journals almost universally called out the new chemical compounds by providing their molecular formulas. Therefore it was not necessary to convert all compounds to systematic names in order to create a molecular formula index.

Thirdly, the realization that many intermediary compounds not identified by molecular formulas were missed by CAS. Index Chemicus provided this small but important additional added value. The focus on intermediates was essential for patent purposes. As Stu Kabach reported recently, CAS was very inconsistent in its handling of patents in the early days⁸. NutraSweet was an intermediate compound indexed in Index Chemicus long before it became famous as a sweetner⁹.

Fourthly, the recognition that the graphical presentation of organic chemistry was essential to the specialist. Any working organic chemist realized that the graphical display of structural information was the only way to communicate efficiently. In short, all of these elements speak to the recognition of the linguistic nature of chemistry at various levels.

Fifth, and not least, timing. In those days, Chemical Abstracts was quite late in producing its molecular formula indexes and we took the revolutionary step of doing this monthly and later, weekly. Furthermore, we received all foreign journals by airmail and stuck to a rigid production schedule.

Sixth, based on our experience with Current Contents, Science Citation Index, and the steroid coding project, we knew that Bradford's Law applied in chemistry and especially for novum organum. To this day, less than 100 journals produce over 95% of the papers containing new chemical compounds, even though hundreds more are scanned for them. Hence, Garfield's Law of Concentration proved to be a significant factor in trying to compete with CA and its coverage of thousands of journals.¹⁰

It is significant that during the years 1956 to 1960, both with respect to citation indexing and chemical indexing, I implored Chemical Abstracts to take up ideas based upon these six points that were proposed by me and a group chaired by Max Gordon in the Philadelphia section of the ACS. But CAS decided to continue on its traditional path. Nevertheless, I maintained nothing but the friendliest relations with E.J. Crane, Charles Bernier, Dale Baker , Fred Tate, Ralph O'Dette, Gerard Platau, Jim Rush, Michael Lynch, Harry Boyle, and others at CAS. I must say that I felt a great animosity towards the NSF for preferentially supporting CAS work simply because they were non-profit.

An integral part of this brief history is my work in chemical linguistics which began officially at the University of Pennsylvania when I signed up in 1955 for a Ph.D. program. This culminated in my 1961 dissertation on "An Algorithm for Translating Chemical Names to Molecular Formulas."¹¹ Just this past April Nick Kemp and Michael Lynch referred to this work in the opening sentence of their paper in the Journal of Chemical Information -- "The design of algorithms for translating chemical names into the corresponding molecular formulas was one of the earliest points of departure in computer handling of chemical information--this was the subject of Gene Garfield's doctoral thesis in the late 1950s."¹²

From the launch of Index Chemicus and Current Abstracts of Chemistry to the present ISI introduced many innovative features and changes, with no support whatsoever from the government. Industry supported us by way of paid subscriptions and moral support. But even from the outset, the $2,000 annual commitment from each of the 12 sponsoring firms was far from sufficient to cover costs. What began as a simple molecular formula index that would have cost us about $25,000 per year to produce, quickly evolved into a full-blown graphical abstracting service. I had underestimated how long it would take for other firms and academics to adopt this product.

All of these chemical information activities were happening at the same time we were starting up the National Institutes of Health supported Genetics Citation Index Project. Index Chemicus developed several innovative features. We pioneered the use of Wisswesser Line Notations (WLN), ROTAFORM, SUBSTRUCTURE, and other types of indexes which are briefly listed in Table 1. Bill Wisswesser was one of our consultants. Al Smith was also very helpful. The work on Chemical Reactions was undoubtedly inspired by the work of Kurt Theilheimer.

Index Chemicus Registry System (ICRS) enabled structure searching well before CAS launched its structure searching in the early 1980s. I believe that it is important to note that every major pharmaceutical company used WLN for their internal files and subscribed to ICRS. ISI made substructure searching of the open literature a possibility.

Current Chemical Reactions was created by the customers themselves. We established a charter group that basically signed up before the product was created and the customers had input as to what the product would contain. It was, and is, a premier chemical reaction database that was available before CAS created a competitive version.

The Reaction Citation Index, and Citation Indexing overall, was the forerunner of "weblinks" at a very detailed level. Only now is CAS including citations in their electronic offerings. This was announced recently at a meeting in New Orleans.

Table 1 provides a chronological table showing when certain features of
Index Chemicus were implemented.

 

 

To be a pioneer is to struggle and Index Chemicus was no exception, although the struggle to keep this product alive is not well known. In the early 1960s its red ink caused all four of my Vice Presidents to leave and form a competitive company which eventually failed. Any sensible corporate executive in an established company would have agreed with them and would have abandoned Index Chemicus.. As a compromise, we created a Chemical Edition of Current Contents but it was not accepted as a substitute for Index Chemicus.

My obsessive attachment to Index Chemicus may be explained as foolish loyalty, commitment, and stubborness or fear of failure. Thanks to Current Contents / Life Sciences , Index Chemicus and Science Citation Index survived. They are now part of an integrated system that includes citation indexing links both to chemical literature and chemical patents. The latter was made easier by virtue of the corporate merger of ISI and Derwent under one Thomson manager.

Another key point about Index Chemicus concerns the timing of our coverage of Japanese and other foreign journals. CAS was far behind because it relied on volunteers. At one point the Japanese language literature was even much more crucial than it is today. Japanese scientists now largely publish in English. Dr. Dave Jordan is completing his fortieth year as ISI's consulting indexer of Japanese journals. Thanks to him we were able to cover Japanese chemical and pharmaceutical journals in the years when key chemical discoveries were still reported in foreign languages, including Russian, German, and French.

Shelly Rahman is responsible for doing the painstaking task of compiling the short tabular history of ISI's Chemical Information Products. There is a long list of people at ISI who have been involved in chemical information retrieval. Among them were Gaby Revesz and George Vladutz both of whom died years ago. Bonnie Lawlor was Executive Vice President of Database Publishing when she left ISI a few years ago. During her 28 years at ISI she was increasingly responsible for the chemical products and pushed for their improvement, including the Reactions Citation Index. Irving H. Sher is not ordinarily mentioned in connection with Index Chemicus but he had a role in all our products and especially the Reactions Citation Index. In particular he should receive credit for the first push-pull system of selective dissemination of information. In the case of new chemistry, we called it the Automatic New Structure Alert (ANSA). Its predecessor was the Automatic SubjectCitation Alert (ASCA) which began in 1965.¹³

Perhaps the best way to end this short history is to say that ISI's chemical information services - including Index Chemicus - are alive and well as are the competitive products that they inspired. As Emerson said, "Invention breeds invention" and perhaps one of the key legacies of ISI's entry into chemical information is that our non-traditional approach accelerated change and prompted the development of a whole new generation of chemical information products and services.

In closing, I'd like to pay tribute to the list of persons who have contributed in one way or another to Index Chemicus over its forty-year history.

NAMES OF PEOPLE AT ISI INVOLVED WITH THE
INDEX CHEMICUS PRODUCT

Alfred	Airone		Peter	Ham		Linda C.	Holmes
Raymond	Alexander		Margaret A.	Matthews		Mary Beth	Homer
Edward J.	Andrulis		Stephen T.	McCrea		Mody	Jacob
Sigmund	Augensten		Martha	McKinney		Karen D.	Jacobson
Dr. Nadia	Awad		Daniel	Meyer		Eugene	Jagella
Anne E.	Backman		Libby	Miller		Dr. Arthur D.	Jordan
Lois	Baker		Lauren S.	Moore		Sagayamary	Joseph
Dr. Gregory	Banik		Henrietta	Morris		Dharmender	Joshi
Joanne H.	Batzig		Kiran	Mull		Dr. Matthew	Kellett
Eleanore H.	Baus		Jack	Myers		Bohdan	Kernytsky
Dave	Bohnenberger		Dr. Charles	Nelson		Youngsoon	Kim
Marsha A.	Brennan		Marthe	Orfus		Edwina	Kirkowski
Cliff	Buetikofer		Josephine	Ortega		Kerry	Klein
Chi-Cheung	Chan		Tamara	Pleszko		Dr. Nikolai	Kopelev
Philipose	Cheriyan		Arthur	Popov		Sridhar	Kuntamukkula
Dr. Matthew	Clark		Mary Ellen	Post		Helen Anne	Lawlor
Anne	Cook		Leslie	Prohaska		Dr. Otto	Lustig
George F.	Corkery		Dr. Robert F.	Raffauf		Iran	Maany
Pasquale	D'Eramo		Shelly H.	Rahman		Peri	Martin
Carol	Donahue		Rupa	Ramaswamy		Jonathan	Stowell
Karen	Feinstein		Gabrielle S.	Revesz		Marina	Tsizhovkina
Dr. Walter	Fiddler		Robert	Ridgeway		Paul	Walter
Andrea	Fisher		Joan	Roberts		Dr. Edward	Wat
Dr. Robert	Fisher		Michael J.	Romanec		Helen M.	Welsh
Gerald H.	Foeman		Patricia J.	Rossi		Charles K.	Whitecar
Milagros Y.	Francisco		Patricia C.	Rosso		Marion	Williams
Dr. Sheldon	Frey		Dr. Nathan	Rubin		Mary B.	Williams
Cecilia	Garvin		Elisabeth	Saada		James	Wismer
Dorothy J.	Glosser		Gladys	Sanchez		Michael	Wisowaty
George	Goeke		Rhoda M.	Sand		Halina	Wolska
James C.	Goggin		Judith E.	Sarkisian		Linda	Wood
Jiansheng	Gong		Margaret M	Schwind		Aimin	Yang
Maria M.C.	Gonzalez		William	Shick		Dr. Yun Yun	Yang
Harry B.	Gottlieb		Elinor C.	Shoop		Andrea	Zanowski
Susan R.	Halczenko		Elizabeth	Skweir		Eugene	Zhang
Dr. James	Hall		Anna	Smolensky
William R.	Hall		Robert	Spiller

 

REFERENCES:

1.back to text Bernard, S. A., Garfield, E. and Hammett, L. P. "Specific Effects in Acid Catalysis by Ion Exchange Resins. III. Some Observations on the Effect of Polyvalent Cations."
 #2t Journal of the American Chemical Society, 76(4), p.991-92, 1954.

2. back to text Garfield, E. "How it all began -- With a Loan from HFC," Essays of an Information Scientist,  Vol: 4, p.359, 1979-80 http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v4p359y1979-80.pdf

3. back to text  http://www.chemheritage.org/HistoricalServices/eminentchemists/Garfield/garfield.html

4.back to text  Garfield, E. "On the Shoulders of Giants" presented at The Conference on the History and Heritage of Science Information Systems, Pittsburgh, October 24, 1998.   http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/history/heritagey1998.html

5a.back to text  Garfield, E. "Citation Indexes for Science: A New Dimension in Documentation
       through Association of Ideas." Science, 122(3159), p.108-11, July
       1955. http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/science_v122(3159)p108y1955.html

5b. back to text  Garfield, E. "Citation Indexes - new paths to scientific knowledge"
     The Chemical Bulletin, 43(4): 11-12, April 1956.

Clark M. "Synthetic chemical literature," Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences, 39(4): 635-637, July - August 1999.

1997

Clark M., Kopelev NS. "Chemical reaction databases from the Institute for Sscientific Information," Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem S 214: 11-CINF Part 1, September 7, 1997.

1996

Anon., "ISI's Index Chemicus database in several formats," Database, 19(3):75, June-July 1996.

1994

Banik GM, Tumolo J. "Hypernavigation of the Chemical Literature," Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem S 208:8-CINF Part 1, August 21, 1994.

1990

Wipke WT. Vladutz G."An alternative view of reaction similarity: Citation Analysis," Tetrahedron Computer Methodology, 3(2): 83-107, 1990.

1988

Dou H. Hassanaly P. "How to use Chemical Abstracts, Current Abstracts of Chemistry and Index Chemicus" - Livesay, B. Educ. Inform 6(1): 91-92, March 1988.

1987

Garfield E. "New compounds and reactions are as close as your PC with the Index Chemicus and Current Chemical-Reactions personal databases," Current Contents, #9, p.3-6, March 2, 1987.

Garfield E. "International collaboration helps establish ISI Reactions Club - Current Chemical Reactions inhouse database is catalyst to research creativity," Current Contents, #13, p.3-7, March 30, 1987.

1986

Meyer D. Cohan P. "Designing new compounds with PC databases," Amer. Clin. Prod. Rev. 5(12):16-9, 1986.

1984

Sarkisian J. "Introduction to ISIS new online chemical information services - an integrated search system for chemical information," ," Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem S 188: 43-CINF, August 1984.

Garfield E. "Index Chemicus goes online with graphic access to 3 million new organic compounds," Current Contents, #26, p.3-10, 1984.

1982

Lawlor B, Kulp C, Sarkisian JE. "The medicinal chemist and ISI - an informative relationship," Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem S 183 : 31-MEDI 1982.

1980

Coulson HJ, Sher IH, Luiso K, et al "WLN at ISI - applications in commercial information services," ," Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem S 180: 29-CINF, August 1980.

Antony A. Stevens J. "New organic compounds in Chemical Abstracts and Current Abstracts of Chemistry and Index Chemicus - a comparison," J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 20(2): 101-105, 1980.

1979

Garfield, E. "Introducing Current Chemical Reactions," Current Contents, #2, p.5-8, 1979.

Foster GA, Granito, CE, "WLN Information system for prostaglandin patents," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S., p.12, September 1979.

Granito CE, "Online searching of specific structures and substructures via Wiswesser Line Notations (WLNS)," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S., p.48, April 1979.

Garfield E. and Vladutz G. "Citation-based fact retrieval techniques in chemistry - retrieval of chemical-reactions using citation indexes," Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem. S, (28) April 1979.

1976

Revesz GS. Lawlor HA, "Computer output microfilm as a publishing alternative for large chemical indexes," Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem S. (172) p.22, September 3, 1976.

Lawlor HA. Batzig JP. "Duplication in chemical literature.2. Systematic study for years 1971-1974," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S. (172) p.25, September 3, 1976.

1975

Garfield, E. "We have added a weekly substructure index to Current Abstracts of Chemistry and Index Chemicus," Current Contents, #5, p.5-6, 1975.

Batzig JH. Lawlor HA. "Ethical impact of publish or perish on increase of new compounds reported in chemical literature," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S. (169) p.34, 1975.

1974

Granito CE. Roberts S. Gibson GW. "The Conversion of Wiswesser Line Notations (WLN) to ring codes - completed system," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S. , 4-4, 1974.

Lynch MF. "Development and evaluation of a mechanised current awareness service based on Index Chemicus Registry System" - Crowe JE, Leggate P, Rossiter BN and Rowland JFB, J. Doc. 30(4): 445-446,
1974.

1973

Leggate P. Rossiter BN. Rowland JFB. "Evaluation of an SDI service based on Index Chemicus Registry System, " J. Chem Doc 13(4): 192-203, 1973.

Garfield E. Revesz G. Batzig J. "The synthetical chemical literature from 1960 to 1969," Nature, 242: 307-309, March 1973

Granito CE. "Use of chemical information systems by marketing," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S. p. 19, August 26, 1973.

Granito CE. "Chemtran and Interconversion of chemical substructure systems," J. Chem. Doc. 13(2): 72-74, 1973.

Granito CE. Garfield E. "Substructure search and correlation in management of chemical information," Naturwissenschaften, 60(4): 189-197, 1973.

1972

Granito CE. Roberts S. Gibson GW. "The conversion of Wiswesser Line Notations to Ring Codes. 1. The conversion of Ring Systems," Journal of Chemical Documentation, 12(3): 190-6, 1972.

Granito CE. Roberts S. "The Conversion of Wiswesser Line Notations to Ring Codes. 2. Conversion of acyclic systems and ring substituents," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S. (164) p.2, August- September 1972.

Garfield E. Revesz GS. "Ten years of synthetic chemical literature - statistical analysis of Index Chemicus from 1960-1969, Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem. S. 164, p.6, August - September, 1972.

Granito CE, "Interconversion of Chemical Structure Systems," Abstr. Pap, Am. Chem S. (164) p.20, August-September 1972.

1971

Granito CE. Rosenberg MD. "The Chemical Substructure Index (CSI) a new research tool," J. Chem. Doc., 11, 251-6, 1971.

1970

Garfield E. Revesz GS. Granito CE. Dorr HA. Calderon MM. and Warner A. "Index Chemicus Registry System: Pragmatic approach to substructure chemical retrieval," J. Chem. Doc. 10(1), 54-8, 1970.

1969

Revesz GS. Warner A. "Retrieving chemical information with Index Chemicus," J. Chem. Doc. 9:106, 1969.

1968

Elias AW. Revesz GS. Foeman GH. "Effects of mechanization on a Chemical Information Service," J. Chem. Doc. 8:74, 1968.

1965

Sher IH, Garfield E, "Applicability of ASCA to the literature requirements of the chemist," Presented at an ACS Meeting in 1965.

1964

Garfield E. Foeman G. "Statistical analysis of international chemical research by individual chemist, languages and countries," American Chemical Society 148th Meeting, Abstract #G31, September 1964.

1960

Garfield E. "The steroid literature coding project," Chemical Literature, 12(3), p.7, 1960.