Data Programs at NBS/NIST: 1901–2021

Abstract

A detailed overview is provided of the vast number of innovative data programs over 120 years at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS)/National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). These programs provide critically evaluated data used throughout the world. The NBS was founded in 1901 through an act of Congress and in 1988 renamed as the NIST. Measurement and dissemination of scientific data to support competitiveness in American industry has been the core of its mission from the beginning. The National Standard Reference Data System (NSRDS) at NBS was established in 1963, followed by the SRD Act of 1968 to establish data evaluation centers and coordinated comprehensive programs to ensure that reliable reference data are easily accessible by scientists, engineers, and the general public. The Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data (JPCRD), started in 1972, has now published 50 volumes. NSRDS and JPCRD publications have provided widely employed print databases in many areas of science; these databases were expanded to computer databases in the 1980s and then to web-based databases in the 1990s. The data programs at NBS/NIST provide critically evaluated data in areas such as the thermodynamic properties of gas- and condensed-phase compounds, their multicomponent mixtures as well as chemical reactions, ceramic-phase equilibria, crystallographic data, refrigerants, water/ice/steam, gas-phase ionic species, atomic energy levels and molecular spectra, molecular mass spectra and peptide mass spectra, chemical kinetics, the CODATA fundamental constants of nature, and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry International Chemical Identifier (InChI).