Approved 03.25.2005

American Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Information (CINF)

Executive Committee Meeting

Saturday, August 27, 2005, Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC

1:05 - 4:50 PM

The Executive Committee was called to order by Chair, Eileen Shanbrom, at 1:05 PM. The agenda and the minutes of the previous meeting were distributed.

Those present for the meeting were as follows:

Executive Committee voting members:

Ms. Eileen Shanbrom, Chair 2005

Dr. Osman Güner, Chair Elect 2005

Ms. Svetlana Korolev, Secretary 2004-05

Ms. Patricia Kirkwood, Treasurer 2005-06, Finance Chair

Ms. Bonnie Lawlor, Councilor 2004-06

Ms. Joanne Witiak, Councilor 2003-05

Dr. Alan Engel, Membership Chair 2004-06

Dr. Terry Wright, Program Chair 2005-06

Committee Chairs and visitors:

Dr. William Town, Awards Chair 2003-05

Ms. Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Constitution, Bylaws & Procedures

Ms. Leah Solla, Education Chair 2003-05

Dr. Guenter Grethe, Fundraising Chair 2003-05, Biotechnology Secretariat Liaison

Mr. Bruce Slutsky, Publications Chair 2003-05

Mr. Graham Douglas, Subscription Manager 2004-06

Ms. Susan Cardinal, Tellers Chair 2005, Incoming Education Co-Chair 2006-08

Ms. Song Yu, Incoming Education Co-Chair 2006-08

Ms. Erja Kajosalo, Incoming Chair-Elect 2006

Ms. Marge Matthews, Awards Committee Member, Past Treasurer 2003-04

Ms. Ronke Lawal, CINF Liaison for the American Society for Engineering Education

  1. Introductions (Eileen Shanbrom)

Ronke Lawal was introduced. Ronke is a liaison to CINF for the Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. She will be a member of the CINF Education committee in 2006.

a. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting.

The minutes of the Spring 2005 Executive Committee meeting were approved with a spelling correction of the last name “Ward” in section 3.c.

  1. CINF Election Results (Susan Cardinal)

250 ballots were received. The 2005 CINF election results were announced:

Chair Elect 2006: Erja Kajosalo
Secretary 2006-07: Svetlana Korolev
Councilor 2006-08: Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Alternate Councilor 2006-08: William Town.

  1. Comments on the long range planning meeting

A question whether the division should change its name was discussed at the long range planning meeting this morning. Pro and con opinions were expressed. It was agreed that an action plan for extending of the division frontier into multidisciplinary programs and outreach activities could be developed. The member feedback for a new division name would be sought. In general, the committee felt that the long-range planning discussions were very useful. A meeting will continue to be scheduled for a Saturday morning at every ACS national meeting.

Action item: An action plan of programs and outreach activities will be developed. Patricia Kirkwood will lead this effort. The group will discuss whether to post alternative names for the Division.

  1. Division Business
  1. ChemLuminary Nomination (Eileen Shanbrom)

In 2004 CINF submitted a self-nomination for a ChemLuminary award. The nomination highlighted the revised mission statement and activities supporting it. CINF was selected as a finalist. Leah Solla and Grace Baysinger were delegated to attend the ChemLuminary award ceremony on Tuesday, August 30. Erja Kajosalo has created a poster for this event.

Action item:Eileen Shanbrom will write on the division participation in the 2005 ChemLuminary ceremony for the CINF E-News.

  1. Regional Meetings Review and Plans (Terry Wright)

David Martinsen, regional meetings liaison, needs to be contacted about the divisional plans for the regional meetings. Sue Cardinal suggested gathering information about the themes for the future regional meetings in order to find a natural fit for a CINF workshop. In general, the workshop is very successful at BCCE [The Biennial Conference on Chemical Education], but has low attendance at a regional meeting.

Action item:Eileen Shanbrom will contact ACS about the themes for the future regional meetings and the attendance data of the past. Andrea Twiss-Brooks will be an “information gatherer.”

c. IO Informatics Scholarships and Press Release (Guenter Grethe)

The establishment of CINF-IO Informatics Scholarship was announced at the previous ACS national meeting in Anaheim. For the first time, the scholarship valued $1,000 each will be given out to three students:

  • Kunal Aggarwal, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, CornellUniversity;
  • Ivan Tubert-Brohman, Department of Chemistry, YaleUniversity;
  • Jérôme Hert, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield.

Each recipient will present a poster at SciMix during the present meeting in Washington. The posters will be marked “Winner of the CINF-IO Informatics Scholarship for Scientific Excellence.” A call for a scholarship to be given out at the next national meeting in Atlanta will be posted to CHMINF-L and in the ACS press release.

  1. Division Summit 2005 - October 7-9, 2005 (Eileen Shanbrom)

Leah Solla and Erja Kajosalo were delegated to attend P2C2, Division Summit II and the Long Range Planning Conference October 7-9, 2005, at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore, MD.

Action item:Eileen Shanbrom will inform ACS on the CINF attendance.

  1. ACS Technical Division Annual Report (Eileen Shanbrom)

In response to the ACS comments of the 2004 CINF annual report, two misperceptions need to be corrected: 1- for the elections the division had three candidates for two positions and after a last minute drop, ended up with one candidate eachfor two positions; 2- all committee meetings except for the Executive committee meeting are open, and even the Executive committee meeting participation is typically granted upon a request. Also, it was decided to reinstate scheduling of a Division Open Business meeting for a Monday afternoon. During the meeting members may submit nominations for the division elections along with other comments. Another recommendation from ACS was to provide a cover letter with highlights for the annual report.

Action item: Svetlana Korolev will send the corrections on the annual report to ACS.

A Division Open meeting will be scheduled for the ACS national meeting in Atlanta. Eileen Shanbrom will write a cover letter with highlights for the next annual report.

f.Committee needs for members (Eileen Shanbrom)

Three committees: Membership, Program and Fundraising need new members. Patricia Kirkwood volunteered to contribute to the Membership committee.

Action item: Committee Chairs need to recruit new members.

g.ASEE liaison for CINF (Patricia Kirkwood, Ronke Lawal)

Patricia suggested having an official liaison with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Ronke is the liaison to CINF for the Engineering Libraries Division (ELD) of ASEE. She talked about the educational activities of the group. A document "Punch List of Best Practices for Electronic Resources" was distributed. It is available at:

The committee felt that the CINF & ELDcollaboration would definitely fit in the proposed action plan for extending of outreach activities.

Action item: Patricia Kirkwood will find procedures for liaisons. Ronke Lawal will follow–up on the CINF-ACS & ELD-ASEE liaison suggestion.

h.CHMINF List Serve (Eileen Shanbrom)

The recent correspondence on a ‘PubChem’ subject contained some offensive postings, not just for CINF or ACS, but for information professionals overall. The concern was whether CHMINF-Lshould have guidelines for professional manners and tone of messages. Pro and con opinions were expressed. It was decided that the division should not restrict any discussions and no guidelines were needed. Some etiquette might be written. Also, the Executive committee might post a ‘leadership opinion’ for a particular issue.

Action item: Eileen Shanbrom will ask Brian Winterman, a new CHMINF-L list serve owner, if he needs any assistance from the CINF Executive committee.

i.CIC & CINFCollaboration (Guenter Grethe)

The next workshop with CIC (‘Computer Information in Chemistry’ division of the German Chemical Society) will be held in the end of September in Germany. From CINF: Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Guenter Grethe, Grace Baysinger, and Bartow Culp will attend. The participants will discuss how to increase membership of the divisions, and how to attract the information science professionals in particular; what e-learning programs are available for the information exchange between CINF and CIC. The workshop is aimed to come up with an action plan. The CINF Fundraising committee will provide a partial reimbursement.

3.Committee and Officer Reports

  1. Awards (Bill Town)
  • Herman Skolnik Award - A new procedure was used this year. All nominations were received electronically and all discussions were handled via e-mail. The 2006 recipient will be announced after this year Herman Skolnik symposium. Two nominations will roll for consideration next year. A new column ‘In Memoriam’ was added to the ‘Recipients’ table on the ‘Herman Skolnik Award’ web page.
  • Lucille Wert Scholarship – Marge Matthews will be a scholarship coordinator in 2006. If funds are available, a scholarship recipient will be invited for the ACS national meeting and offered up to $1,000 travel reimbursement by the Fundraising Committee.
  • Meritorious Service Award – The 2006 nominations are to be submitted to Guenter Grethe by March 1.
  • Membership – Guenter Grethe will be the Awards Chair 2006-08. Bill Town and Svetlana Korolev will be off in 2006. Svetlana will re-join in 2007.

Action item: Bill Town will revise the Awards committee procedures.

  1. Council (Bonnie Lawlor and Joanne Witiak)

An electronic version of a report on the Council Agenda was distributed to the Executive committee members prior to this meeting. The following items are for Council action in Washington, DC:

  • Election to fill open positions on three committees: Committee on Committees, Council Policy Committee, and Committee on Nominations and Elections.
  • Change in Local Section territory for the Central New Mexico Section to include four unassigned counties.
  • Revision to Charter Bylaws for Local Sections & International Chemical Sciences Chapters to allow for electronic balloting.

There are no petitions for voting in the agenda. A special discussion is on a ‘Vision for the Society’ in preparation for the development of the 2007-2009 ACS Strategic Plan. Information gathering kiosks for member input will be placed at the ACS National meeting in Washington, DC. Immediately following the Council meeting, there will be a Councilor briefing on the compensation given ACS executives.

A Town Hall meeting on Sunday will provide an opportunity to ask questions of the Candidates for Directors-at-Large for 2006-2008. Preceding the meeting, there will be an open forum for Councilors to voice their opinions on the ACS national elections.

  1. Education (Leah Solla)
  2. Membership – Sue Cardinal and Song Yu will be the Co-Chairs 2006-08; Jeremy Garritano, Ronke Lawal, Meghan Lafferty, Judith Currano, and Bruce Slutsky will be the members in 2006.
  3. Programs –A session on ‘intellectual property’ is organized and co-sponsored with CHAL, CHED, and YCC for the ACS meeting in Washington, DC. An option for creating a workshop on ‘intellectual property’ was considered. A ‘Chemical Information Instruction’ program will be co-organized with the Division of Chemical Education for a national meeting in San Francisco. Liaison programming with BCCE, ASEE, and Tri-Society was discussed.
  4. Clearinghouse for Chemical Information – The content and organization are being updated. Sue Cardinal will create a vision statement.
  5. Workshop –A few previous workshops had low attendance at the national and regional meetings. The attendees input were sought. Different modes addressing specific user needs need to be evolved. Online modules, i.e. on intellectual property, may be developed. A workshop will not be planned for the next few national meetings, but more programming will be done for local meetings. An option for a workshop to be offered as an ACS short course will be explored.
  6. BCCE 2006 will be held at PurdueUniversity, West Lafayette. Proposals on intellectual property, copyright, ethics, & plagiarisms are to be submitted to Bartow Culp.

Action item: Sue Cardinal will create a vision statement. The committee will explore ACS short courses as another avenue for a workshop.

d.Finance/Treasurer (Patricia Kirkwood)

  • The 2005 treasurer report was discussed. All expenses were within the budget parameters.
  • The 2006 proposed budget was approved with a correction in the ‘Herman Skolnik award’ entry for $11,000 instead of $12,000.
  • There was a proposal for the Program Assistant Chair to be responsible for the invited speaker registrations, which will include a one-day registration fee and a lunch covered by the division. The Executive committee voted for this proposal. This year $5,000 was covered by the Fundraising committee.
  • It was decided to have a ‘reserve’ budget.

Action item: The Program Assistant Chair will be responsible for the invited speaker registrations. Patricia Kirkwood will work with the Program committee to write travel guidelines for the speakers. Patricia will estimate the amount for a ‘reserve budget.’

e.Fundraising (Guenter Grethe):

  • Membership - Graham Douglas will be the Fundraising Chair 2006-08. Bill Town will be off in 2006.
  • The total income of the committee was $46,000, the expenditure - $26,000. Two scholarships were given to two students at the University of Sheffield and Indiana University Bloomington.
  • There are three winners of the CINF-IO Scholarship Award. [See section 2.c]
  • Three receptions are planned for the meeting in Washington, DC: CINF Welcoming reception on Sunday sponsored by CAS, Cruise and reception on Monday sponsored by Thieme, and Herman Skolnik Award reception on Tuesday sponsored by ACS Publications. CAS will sponsor the next welcoming reception in Atlanta.
  1. Membership (Alan Engel)
  • A “CINF Membership Trends, February 2001-August 2005” chart was distributed. The membership is stable, of about 1640 members total in 2005. About 200 of the former LABA [Division of Laboratory Automation] members are staying in CINF.
  • An invitation letter to join the division was sent to the non-member speakers presented in the CINF program. As a result, one speaker joined the division.
  • Membership – The committee has only three members: Alan Engel, Silvia Lee and Kashif Hoda, a new member in 2006. More new members are needed.

Action item: Alan Engel will recruit new members for the committee.

g.Program (Terry Wright)

  • Membership - Leah Solla will be the Assistant Chair in 2006. Jan Williams will be the Assistant Chair in 2007. Pamela Scott and Andrea Twiss-Brooks will join in 2006. Chris Lipinski may join.
  • Twelve half-day symposia are planned for the ACS meeting in Washington, DC, i.e. on intellectual property, data-mining, open access, public policy, and the Herman Skolnik Award symposium. There were two cancellations.
  • Fifteen half-day symposia are planned for the ACS meeting in Atlanta, i.e. on chemical information in the media, public health, reaction searching, and careers.
  • A session sponsored by the Beilstein Institute is planned for the ACS meeting in San Francisco. It will be either two half-day symposia at CINF, or one at CINF and one at ORG.
  • Nineteen half-day symposia are tentatively planned for the ACS meeting in Chicago, i.e. on the Great Lakes environment.
  • CINF co-sponsored the 7th International Conference on ChemicalStructures, 5-9 June 2005, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. It had a tremendous success: 250 registrations (120 were expected), and 38,000 euros surplus.
  • CINF will participate in PACIFICHEM 2005, December 15-20 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii. Bob Snyder with contribution from Terry Wright is organizing a multi day symposium on “Drug discovery: integration of biology and chemistry information”. Thirty-eight papers will be presented from CINF.
  • A CSA Trust symposium will be organized at a Spring ACS National meeting.

Action item: Terry Wright will submit a list of the future programs to Kerryn Brandt for the CINF Website. Eileen Shanbrom will highlight the fact that our division has exceptionally extended future programming in the cover letter for the annual report.

  1. Publications (Bruce Slutsky)
  • Membership – New functionaries in 2006:
  • Svetla Baykoucheva - CIB Editor,
  • Andreas Bender – CIB Assistant Editor,
  • Beth Thomsett-Scott - CINF E-News Editor,
  • Richard Williams – CINF Webmaster.

There is a need for the Publications Chair 2006-08.

  • A website usage report was distributed. The most number of hits was from the meeting abstracts & slide presentations. The low usage was for the CINF E-News. There was a proposal for the CINF E-News to be available freely (without a log - in and password). The Executive Committee voted for this proposal. Adding information on ‘how to join the division’ to the CINF E-News was suggested.
  • The Executive committee approved placing of the 2004 CINF Salary survey on the division website.

Action item: Bruce Slutsky will announce the CINF E-News freely access on the CHMINF-L.

  1. Procedures (Andrea Twiss-Brooks)

Revisions to the procedures manual were gathered.

Action item: Andrea Twiss-Brooks will incorporate new revisions in the Procedures manual.

  1. Misc:
  • Website- Guenter Grethe commented on the difficulty getting to the CINF website. Sending a letter to ACS for the CINF inclusion in a ‘website redesign’ project was suggested. Also, moving of the old content from a Chicago site to a new central site was recommended.
  • Luncheon speaker - Eileen Shanbrom informed that Andrew Johnson, geographer at the NationalAir & SpaceMuseum, would discuss how satellites are used by scientists to better understand the planet.
  • Membership Dues - Bonnie Lawlor reported that the archival documents on the CINF membership dues within the last twenty-five years were investigated. A document on the CINF trends and trends of the other ACS divisions will be created.
  • Public relations – Eileen Shanbrom suggested thinking about long range planning if the division needs to designate a particular person, i.e. Chair-Elect or Past-Chair, to serve as public relations chair.

Meeting was adjourned 4:50 PM Respectfully submitted,

Svetlana Korolev

CINF Secretary 2004-05

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