University of Texas Libraries
Locating Gray Literature: Conferences, Technical Reports, E-Prints
ACS Meeting Abstracts and Papers
- ACS Abstracts of Papers
- The American Chemical Society publishes abstracts of papers to be presented at technical sessions of the ACS National Meetings.
- Abstracts of the current meeting only are available on the ACS National Meetings web site. There is no archive.
- The abstracts (without graphics) are included in SciFinder. In Chemical Abstracts the title was abbreviated as "Abstr. Pap. Am. Chem. Soc." and more recently appears as "Abstracts of Papers, [N]th ACS National Meeting, [place], [date]"
- 1937-2005: Abstracts of papers - American Chemical Society are available as printed volumes in the library, shelved in the journal stacks after JACS.
- 2006- : the abstracts are published only on CD-ROM, available on Reserves. These CDs typically arrive long after the meeting is over.
- 2007- : the title changed to Abstracts of scientific papers.
- Unless the paper was also published as a preprint from one of the Divisions listed below, or as a postprint within a separate proceedings volume, there are no published versions of the full papers -- the abstract is all there is. Contact the authors for more information.
- Don't confuse the "ACS abstracts" with Chemical Abstracts.
- ACS Division Preprints
- Five technical divisions of the American Chemical Society publish preprints or extended abstracts of papers in advance of national meetings. Formerly in print, they are now published on CD-ROM and are kept on Media Reserves in the Chemistry Library. (Receipt of CD-ROMs is not always timely.) The preprints (excluding FUEL) are also available on the Web to institutional subscribers including UT Austin via the ACS Proceedings site. Earlier years have not been digitized. Preprints are separately indexed by CAS.
Division Library Holdings Environmental Chemistry Division Preprints Extended Abstracts 
Print: 1973-99 (incomplete)
CD-ROM: 2000-06
Web: 2004-Fuel Chemistry Preprints Print: 1960-2002
CD-ROM: 2003-
Web: 2001- (for division members only)Petroleum Division Preprints Print: 1942-2005
CD-ROM: 2006-
Web: 2002-Polymer Preprints Print: 1962-2004
CD-ROM: 2005-
Web 2000-Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE Preprints) Print: 1983-2001
CD-ROM: 2002-07
Web: 2001- - ACS Symposia
- Some topical symposia held at ACS meetings collect selected papers into proceedings volumes after the fact. The two most important series are:
- ACS Symposium Series (1974-present, shelved in Book Stacks at QD 1 A447)
- Advances in Chemistry Series (1950-1998, each volume cataloged separately)
AIChE Meeting Papers
AIChE papers are not widely held in libraries; the UT Libraries do not own any in either CD or fiche format. Consult with a librarian before trying to request a paper via interlibrary loan. There is no comprehensive index of AIChE papers and their locations. Some papers are indexed in SciFinder or Engineering Index. Some are posted by authors on the web, but many are unpublished. The catalog of the Linda Hall Library lists a number of them.
The AIChE Symposium Series (1971-2002) and its predecessor Chemical Engineering Progress Symposium Series (1951-71) were proceedings of selected topical symposia from the AIChE meetings. The Chemistry Library holds complete runs of these series at TP 1 A488/5. Each is separately cataloged in the Library Catalog.
Other Conference Papers and Proceedings
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Thousands of scientific conferences and symposia, large and small, take place every year. Some of them publish proceedings, collections of papers presented at the meeting. Proceedings can be published as books or in special issues of journals. Some conferences publish abstracts or preprints of papers to be presented at an upcoming conference. Others distribute abstracts, preprints, or proceedings in CD-ROM format to society members or attendees, often for a fee. Many conferences publish nothing at all. Presentations at conferences may be cited in later literature even if nothing was actually published. If a bibliography contains a citation that looks something like this:
Smith, H.L., 5th Int. Symp. Chem. Phys., Feb. 2001. lacking page numbers or publisher information, this most likely refers to an unpublished conference presentation. |
Here are some things you could do to find that elusive conference:
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Technical Reports
Technical reports usually originate in federal government agencies, but may also come from academic institutions, state or foreign governments, and private firms and organizations. They contain results of research carried out on government contracts or, in the case of corporations, for in-house, proprietary use. They are often cited in articles and indexed in databases, yet in some cases they can be quite difficult to verify and obtain. Major U.S. government sources include:
Technical reports are usually referenced by author(s), title, and report number. Report number formats vary widely according to the issuing agency's own numbering system. Some examples:
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Here are some web sites that can help you track down tech reports and other gray information.
More Info about Tech Reports
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E-Prints
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"E-prints" are typically draft or final versions of papers accepted for publication in scientific journals that are deposited by authors in special repositories. Open distribution of e-prints is very important in fields like physics; much less so in chemistry.
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