• Edwin A. Hill publishes his system for ordering molecular formulas in an index. It is first used by the Classification Division of the U.S. Patent Office.

• First issue of Chemical Abstracts (CA) is published, edited by William A. Noyes, Sr., in the United States, using volunteers as abstractors (a continuing tradition in CA until the 1960s).

• American Institute of Chemical Engineers is founded and begins publication of its transactions.

• Austin M. Patterson, professor at Ohio State University, assumes editorship of CA, and its offices are moved from the University of Illinois at Urbana to Columbus.

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• Wilhelm Ostwald founds Die Brücke, an international institute for the organization of intellectual work, but fails in his attempt to establish a special international institute to document the field of chemistry.

• Editor Evan J. Crane publishes first CA decennial index (1907-16), which includes a new means of naming and indexing compounds developed by Austin M. Patterson and Carleton C. Curran.

• The Beilsteins Handbuch der Organischen Chemie makes possible substructure searching.

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• CA adds annual formula index, first to be used in an abstract journal. These formula indexes did not indicate molecular structures, or functional groups, but served as very broad screens for searching purposes.

• IUPAC establishes commissions on chemical nomenclature to formulate rules for naming chemical compounds systematically.

• Eighth edition of Gmelin Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie is published, under sponsorship of Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft.

• British Chemical Abstracts begins. Becomes British Chemical and Physiological Abstracts in 1938 and British Abstracts in 1946.
• In the United States Biological Abstracts is first published.

• Nippon Kagaku Soran, a Japanese chemical abstracts journal, is published.

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• Samuel C. Bradford, mathematician and librarian at the Science Museum in London, develops his "law of scattering" regarding differences in demand for scientific journals. This work influences bibliometrics and citation analysis of scientific publications.

• A $15,000 grant from the Chemical Foundation allows Watson Davis to establish the Documentation Institute as part of Science Service and to operate the Auxiliary Publication Service for science librarians. These initiatives lead indirectly to the establishment, in 1937, of the American Documentation Institute, the predecessor of the American Society for Information Science.

• Conrad Weygand, a German chemist, proposes a method for classifying chemical reactions based on the breaking and forming of bonds during a reaction.

• France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique is established with chemical information science among its fields of research.

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• The Ring Index, by Austin M. Patterson and Leonard T. Capell, is first published.
• Bulletin Signalétique, a French abstract journal, is first published.

• National Registry of Rare Chemicals established by the Armour Research Foundation in Chicago.

• Technical Library Techniques Symposium is held at an ACS meeting, and the Chemical Literature Group is formed as part of the Division of Chemical Education.

• Article by Gerald J. Cox, Charles F. Baily, and Robert S. Casey in Chemical and Engineering News, "Punched Cards for a Chemical Bibliography," is first to bring punched cards to attention of chemists.

• ACS board establishes a Board Committee on Punched Cards, with James W. Perry as chairman. The committee's activities are financially supported by the ACS with additional funds solicited from industry. Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Scientific Aids to Learning continues this work with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation.
• Chemical Biological Coordination Center (CBCC) is established in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. Begins punched-card system to organize complex information files.
• The Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker is founded, replacing the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft and the Verein Deutscher Chemiker.
• G. Malcolm Dyson presents a paper before London's Royal Institute of Chemistry on his notation system, which seeks to represent chemical structures uniquely and unambiguously in a linear sequence of letters and numbers. IUPAC provisionally recommends the Dyson system.
• USDA Library offers to furnish copies of all articles cited in CA to subscribers and members of the ACS. Project is halted in 1956 because of copyright issues.

• Preparation of the CA fourth decennial index (covering 1937-46) requires 1.6 million index cards, five miles of one-column galley proofs, and several years to produce.
• First volume of first edition of Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology is published.
• William E. Batten, Imperial Chemical Industries in Great Britain, reports on the use of optical coincidence cards for information retrieval.

• ACS's Division of Chemical Literature is formed and the next year begins publication of Chemical Literature. In 1975 name changes to Division of Chemical Information.
• Gmelin-Institut für Anorganische Chemie und Grenzgebiete of the Max-Planck Institut commences editing and publishing Gmelin Handbuch.
• Welch Medical Library Indexing Project at Johns Hopkins University begins. Sponsored by the Army Medical Library (now the National Library of Medicine), it is one of the first efforts to study medical and chemical nomenclature and indexing and to apply machine technologies to this information.
• Royal Society Scientific Information Conference convenes in London.
• James W. Perry and G. Malcolm Dyson discuss with Thomas J. Watson, IBM president, the need to develop a machine to handle large volumes of scientific information, particularly chemical information. Watson agrees to work on the problem and assigns Hans Peter Luhn to the project.
• Calvin Mooers develops concept of Zatocoding, using "descriptors" and random coding on mechanically sorted edge-notched cards.

• Austin M. Patterson receives first A.M. Patterson Award for Documentation in Chemistry from ACS's Dayton Section. In 1975 the award is expanded to honor E.J. Crane and becomes the Patterson-Crane Award.
• George Willard Wheland, professor at the University of Chicago, develops basic concept of the connection table to represent chemical structures.
• William J. Wiswesser introduces Wiswesser Line Notation.

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CHRONOLOGY OF CHEMICAL INFORMATION SCIENCE (BY SUBJECT)
 

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