Letters

Finding a future for ACS

I have been a member of ACS for more than 30 years. While I previously worked in industry, about five years ago I made the transition into secondary education because of the declining job opportunities in my field. I stayed a member because I wanted to be in an organization of my peers, sort of like being part of a family.

There are two areas that you focused on in C&EN that I would like to address.

One area is your suggested change of ACS's name (C&EN, Nov. 8, 2004, page 5). You mentioned that you "talked ... to a variety of people who care about ACS and about chemistry." So you talked to many elite chemistry representatives for ideas on what course to pursue for the future of the society. What percent of the society are represented by these elite people? Whatever this percent is, if the membership is not growing, it is a fixed number. I have worked in R&D for many years developing and improving many materials. I represent many chemists who are not of this notable stature and who believe that we should also be consulted about the future of the society. We are the unsung heroes developing and improving products for cost and performance, and we get little recognition, even sometimes from our own companies. The reason: It is our job.

Howard Peters also mentioned reaching out to high school educators to join the society (C&EN, Jan. 31, page 45). My question is, What do you have to offer a high school teacher? My last basic dues payment was $127. Since I have not found many of the benefits offered to members to be cost-effective, that is a lot of money just to receive C&EN. It is a fine magazine, but if that is all a secondary education teacher gets, then it is too expensive. Also, most teachers have to pay their own dues, unlike chemists employed by industry.

Since ACS only consults the elite of the chemical profession, how would they know what turns younger people on to the profession? If you do not capture the students in the middle grades, then you can kiss them goodbye. The future growth of ACS depends on capturing and keeping the interest of these young students.

Most of the elite chemistry teachers (that is, employed in higher education) have little exposure to what is needed to turn students on to the sciences. Some only lecture and do not correct tests or observe labs and other instructional endeavors. Are these the people you asked? By the time a college student takes science, his mind is mostly made up as to whether his future will include science.

I do not have room to approach the problem at hand. I only hope that it will elicit some commentary from other members.

Gary J. Banuk
Hanson, Mass.

Mistaken about chlorine

The article "Safety Derailed" attributes a specific comment to me--a comment I did not make--about Ashta Chemicals (C&EN, Jan. 17, page 11). I had been discussing with the author that, generically, there are a number of factors involved in transporting chlorine safely and that building a chlorine plant at the point of use is not an option in all cases. I mentioned that dialogue with customers about how to best serve their needs for our products is an essential part of the supplier-customer relationship.

The article suggested, however, that I was dismissive of that approach and that I used Ashta Chemicals as an example. For the record, I never mentioned Ashta. The Ashta reference was inserted into a statement attributed to me.

Also, let me further clarify that the Chlorine Institute applauds Ashta's commitment to chlorine stewardship, including the decision to locate its new plant in El Dorado, Ark., near its customer's point of use.

Kathleen A. Shaver
President, The Chlorine Institute
Arlington, Va.

An attitude on safety

I was very disturbed by the letter from G. David Mendenhall on picric acid (C&EN, Feb. 7, page 5). Mendenhall describes a confrontation with a safety officer concerning the hazards of picric acid stored in the laboratory. I do not have any expertise on the hazards of this material, and to a certain extent that may put me in the same position as the safety officer, who somehow has to deal with perhaps hundreds of chemicals in a laboratory facility. In that position, one must rely heavily on the more extensive knowledge of the people more familiar with the material and temper this reliance with some understanding of the attitude of those people toward safety. It sounds like neither party in this confrontation handled the situation particularly well, with inflammatory language such as "talking nonsense" and shouting.

The final sentence of the letter bothered me the most. After being asked to convert the picric acid to picryl chloride, Mendenhall states that he was "only too happy to oblige, since picryl chloride is considerably more dangerous than picric acid, and the memo effectively demonstrated the ignorance of the safety official about the safety of chemicals." This sentence clearly demonstrates to me that Mendenhall is much more concerned about making somebody else look foolish than he is about safety in the laboratory. When dealing with a person with this attitude, it's no wonder that the safety officer was reluctant to accept his judgment about the hazards of the material.

Mendenhall states that the remedy for ignorance and superstition is education. He is right, but to educate somebody, you must have respect for that person and for his or her concerns and point of view.

Dennis C. Hendershot
Croydon, Pa.

Finding fault in science funding

In the Insights article "Funding for NSF Down," a reduction in National Science Foundation funding is partially blamed on the political affiliations and activities of scientists (C&EN, Jan. 17, page 32).

When was it established that a majority of scientists held a particular political affiliation? One would hope that such pettiness would not be a part of federal appropriations or the reporting of it.

The real problem with the federal appropriations process is partially identified in the article--too many politicians want too much power. The other unidentified problem is that, for many years, Congress has failed to perform its job. Failure to pass spending bills on time leads to omnibus bills that only a few author, read, or understand. These omnibus bills are also the mechanism to sneak through most pork-barrel spending. It seems that one of the best ways to find increased funding for the sciences would be to have spending bills debated and passed individually, on time, and with wasteful spending eliminated so that it can be more wisely used.

Jason R. Guth
Phoenix

ACS actions in perspective

While James D. Burke, the distinguished chair of the ACS Board of Directors, presents reasons for justifying ACS executive compensation, I personally disagree that ACS should compensate its top 2% of employees simply by benchmarking competitive compensation ("2004 In Perspective," C&EN, Dec. 20, 2004, page 68). Ultimately, compensation should also consider individual performance to the society and society performance to its members. While I cannot comment on the former, in the case of the latter, I do not believe that the executives have competitively performed in service to its members.

First, a recent article in C&EN highlighted efforts by the National Institutes of Health to push publishers such as ACS--whose executives continue to resist--to freely distribute scientific knowledge authored under government research funds (C&EN, Sept. 6, 2004, page 14). C&EN also reported on ACS legal action against Google, whose entrepreneurial activities have inspired ACS to publish abstracts and first pages free of charge for the very first time (C&EN, Dec. 20, 2004, page 13).

This brings home a critical issue of service to members that has not been addressed--fair access (and at reasonable cost) to ACS publications. Should not all members of the society benefit from the dissemination of our society's copyrighted intellectual property for their individual benefit and their ability to contribute to the intellectual advancement of society in general? Not all members work for the government, academic institutions, or corporations willing to pay for information advancing the study of chemistry. Despite an ever-increasing amount of scientific information available to the public at no cost, the intellectual archives of this premiere chemical society remain hidden from members unless exorbitant (an opinion, I confess) fees are extracted from members already paying a never-ending increase in dues.

Second, as discussions within C&EN's pages may suggest, there is an increasing concern about the relevancy of chemistry in today's corporate research and academic communities. Should that prophecy--that "chemistry" be taught, studied, and researched by those not educated in chemistry--be realized, ACS itself may become irrelevant. I hope this prophecy turns out to be untrue.

My point is not that these and other perhaps more important issues are unsolvable by the executives and board directors of one of the largest membership and technical societies in the world: The issues just have not been successfully and innovatively overcome yet. Instead of leading the charge, as apparently Google and NIH are attempting to do, the executives of ACS appear to be resisting innovation and, I believe, as a result reducing service to their own members. Do you know how expensive it is for an individual society member to procure all the relevant journals published by ACS? These factors suggest to me that while the board seeks to compensate the top 2% competitively--a reasoned approach few would argue against--perhaps our benchmark for competitive performance is too low. I trust that will change. I thank you for your service to our society.

Bruce Baretz
West Milford, N.J.

As an academic librarian who teaches online research in graduate library school as well as to college students and the public, I think that ACS is wasting its time in taking legal action against Google. As a librarian, I am very concerned about ensuring copyright and trademark protection. But the ACS suit, like so many recently, has the feeling of greed rather than ensuring protection of intellectual property.

Why do I feel this way? Because you may have trademarked SciFinder Scholar, but you cannot trademark the word "scholar" as it is applied to all databases. The word is generic, in common usage, and is totally in the public domain. I will be glad to declare so to a court as an information professional concerned with the intellectual property issues in databases. I will declare that neither I, nor my students, nor the public that I serve are confused about the use of "scholar" in Google Scholar and whether it has any relationship to SciFinder Scholar.

So please focus on more important issues, such as finding a business model that makes your products more price competitive in a market (such as for students, faculty, special libraries, or the general public) that wants free access to full text anywhere at any time.

John Hogle
San Jose, Calif.