Evan Jay Crane

Evan Jay Crane (1899-1966), an American chemist, was an indexer of Chemical Abstracts.

Evan Jay Crane

Life

Evan Jay Crane was born on February 14, 1889 in Columbus, Ohio. He received a BS from Ohio State University in 1911, then joined the staff of the American Chemical Society's Chemical Abstracts as an associate editor and in 1914 Acting Editor. In 1915 he became 1915 and served until 1958. From 1956 to 1958 Crane also served as Director of the Chemical Abstracts Service. He continued writing and abstracting until he died on December 30, 1966.

Contributions

Crane introduced a carefully classified subject entry list and an entire unified system of nomenclature so that chemical compounds could be indexed coherently without scattering the entries by means of an alphabetical list of compound families. The author indexes were improved. An annual formula index and a numerical patent index were added.

Crane assisted in the development of the Division of Chemical Literature and was its first chairman in 1958 American Chemical Society forged the 'key to the world's chemical literature'...organized, along with the help of Dr. Patterson, and weld[ed] chemical information into a discipline...was devoted to bettering [scientists'] science by bettering their access to it. Crane started the List of Periodicals Abstracted by Chemical Abstracts in 1908 to help the user identify the complete titles of materials cited by abbreviations and to provide the user with a list of publishers and addresses for the abstracted material. He died

He changed the indexing system of Chemical Abstracts from word indexing to classified subject entry. He developed a unified system of chemical nomenclature. 

Publications

Crane published numerous articles on abstracting, indexing and documentation activities.

• A Guide to Literature of Chemistry (1927) with Austin Patterson. [1] [2] 2nd ed., with Eleanor Marr, New York: Wiley, 1957. [3]
• "Scientist Share And Serve." [The Priestley Medal Address]. Chemical & Engineering News Archive 1951, 29, no 42 (Oct 15, 1951): 4250-4253. [4]
• CA today; the production of Chemical abstracts. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1958.

Offices

Crane served on numerous committees and held several offices relating to chemical literature.

• American Chemical Society. Committee on Nomenclature, Spelling, and Pronunciation, Chairman 1914-58. *Mayor of Upper Arlington, Ohio, 1924.

Awards

• American Chemical Society. Priestley Medal, 1951. [5]
• American Chemical Society. Patterson Award, 1963. Renamed Patterson-Crane award, 1975.
• Society of Chemical Industry of London. Chemical Industry Medal, 1937.
• Ohio State University. Honorary Doctor of Science, 1938.

Further reading

• Dikeman, Robert K. "Crane, Evan Jay (1889-1966)." Dictionary of American library biography, ed. by Bohdan S. Wynar. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1978, pp 100-102.
• "1951: Evan J. Crane (1889–1966)." Chemical & Engineering News Special Issue – 85th Anniversary Of The Priestley Medal. 86, no 14 (April 7, 2008). [6].

Papers

LOCATION #1: CAS Library, 2540 Olentangy River Road, P.O. Box 3012, Columbus, OH 43210-0012.

INCLUDES: Papers and correspondence are housed in an off-site facility of CAS. None of the papers have been processed or indexed but this is considered a temporary status since in the future CAS is looking to organize the archives. Anyone interested in examining Crane's papers should notify the CAS librarian who can retrieve the papers within a day or two from the off-site storage.

FINDING AID: None available at this time.

SOURCE: Letter from W. V. Metanomski, Senior Editor, Authority Database Operations, CAS (25 June 1996).

• Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 90-105, Science Service Records, Image No. SIA2008-0684. [7]