Date:         Tue, 10 May 1994 10:23:28 EDT
Reply-To:     CHEMICAL INFORMATION SOURCES DISCUSSION LIST
              <CHMINF-L@IUBVM.BITNET>
Sender:       CHEMICAL INFORMATION SOURCES DISCUSSION LIST
              <CHMINF-L@IUBVM.BITNET>
From:         "David W. Weisgerber" <dww40@CAS.ORG>
Subject:      Re: Author Names in Chemical Abstracts
 
The following is in response to the two recent messages that have asked about
the handling of author names in CAS services.
 
Generally, an author name will appear in the Chemical Abstracts Service
database and services exactly as it was presented in the original document.
A misspelling will be corrected IF it is recognized.  Variations in names may
occur in the database owing to differences in the original publications (e.g.,
initials for the first and/or middle names versus full first and/or middle
names).
 
Author names that do not appear in the Roman alphabet in the original source
document are transliterated according to the particular methods described in
the Introduction to the CA AUTHOR INDEX.  Certain Germanic and Scandinavian
diacritical marks are transliterated, including the German umlaut a, o, and
u which are transliterated to ae, oe, and ue, respectively.
 
Problems may arise when an author name has undergone a prior translation or
transliteration before publication in the original document (e.g., the name of
a Chinese author publishing in a Russian journal).  This may lead to
differences in the author's name in the CAS database and services if the
author has had papers published in more than one journal in different
languages or using different transliteration schemes.  Database searchers
should be aware of this possibility when formulating their queries.
 
In the past there was an extensive manual review and expansion of author names
conducted for the CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS collective author index, but this
standardization affected only the printed collective index and has been
discontinued.
 
Author names are listed in the printed or electronic author records in the
same order in which they appear in the original document.  Up to ten author
names are included for one document.  When more than ten authors occur, the
names of the first nine authors are given plus the phrase "et al".
 
The address cited is that which is reported first in the original publication,
and is generally that of the first author, irrespectively of whom the journal
designates as the senior or principal author, or the author to whom all
correspondence should be addressed.
 
David W. Weisgerber
Editor