LINDA RABER

The chemical enterprise and the 125th anniversary of the American Chemical Society were celebrated last week as nearly 18,000 chemical scientists gathered in San Diego for the 221st ACS national meeting.

	HIGHLIGHTS The 221st ACS national meeting featured a 472-booth exposition and numerous presidential events. PHOTOS BY KEVIN MACDERMOTT
	PAVLATH CANDIDATES Reichmanis and Carrol

Attendees could pick and choose from more than 7,700 papers presented in 750 technical sessions that were sponsored by 27 divisions, six committees, and two secretariats. Cool weather and inviting exhibits kept traffic brisk in the 472-booth exposition. And a new ACS Industry Pavilion offered 34 presentations on business trends and innovative technologies.

Among announcements made by ACS units, Chemical Abstracts Service introduced eScience, a tool that lets scientists use the Web to expand on search results from CAS information products. By year's end, CAS customers with STN Easy, SciFinder, or SciFinder Scholar will be able to search CAS data and then expand their searches to the entire Web with eScience.

JobSpectrum.org, a joint project of the Publications and Membership Divisions, previewed the new online career resource and recruiting website that debuts June 1. A redesigned ACS home page--chemistry.org (http://www.acs.org)--was also introduced.

ACS President Attila E. Pavlath called himself the "pedometer president" as he hurried to and from the various sessions he had designated as presidential events, among them one on international opportunities in chemical research and another called "You Only Thought You Were Retired." He wrote and performed in a one-act musical called "It Is Time for a Change" and hosted a dinner for 28 presidents and other representatives of foreign chemical societies invited to celebrate ACS's 125th birthday. There also were a number of presidentially appointed symposia and short courses scattered throughout the technical program.

In the governance arena, ACS councilors heard from four nominees for 2002 ACS president-elect. The nominees were James A. Bristol, Pfizer Global R&D, Ann Arbor, Mich.; William F. Carroll Jr., Occidental Chemical Corp., Dallas; E. Charles Galloway, Edison Polymer Innovation Corp. (retired); and Elsa Reichmanis, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, N.J. The councilors elected Carroll and Reichmanis as candidates to stand for election this fall.

The ACS Council voted to raise annual membership dues for 2002 to $112; there was no dues increase in 2001. The council also voted to approve a petition to increase the size of council standing committees from a minimum of six and a maximum of 15 to a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 20.

At the ACS Board meeting, board members agreed to provide ACS divisions and local sections with up to $300,000 over two years for pressing financial needs. The board also approved a funding request of $105,000 from the Technology Milestones Project, a planned exhibit and multimedia presentation on the past 125 years of chemical innovation, scheduled to debut in August at the ACS national meeting in Chicago.

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