So, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of ICIS, I shall write the official history, or at least the salient points:
1 ICIS was started in 1980 (really November 1979) in
2 ICIS originally stood for Independent Chemical Information Services (There was a brief spell in the 90s when the C stood for Commodity.)
3 ICIS merged with LOR (London Oil Reports) in 1984.
4 Reed bought ICIS-LOR in 1994.
5 The first Methodology was produced in 1996. An expanded version was published in hard copy in 2001, and circulated to all subscribers in response to a request from BASF (photo below).
6 The first ICIS Style Guide was published in 1994 to merge the informal guides held in the individual ICIS offices.
7 The original reports were distributed mostly by computer (made available to dial-up subscribers from a
8 The
9 The Asia office was set up in
10 The first ICIS conference was Styrene in Singapore in 1995.
11 On-line price history goes back to 1986. Before then, old reports were stored in filing cabinets, and were thrown out in the move from the Vauxhall office in 1995.
12 The first office was in
13 My first contract is on writing paper from the original ICIS office in rue d'Alesia,
(Thanks to Brendan Drake, Linda Naylor, Pam Franklin, James Mills, Adrian Brown, Jane Massingham for details of the olden days which could have made a whole book.)
I really enjoyed reading this Barbara - it's lovely to read all about the history of ICIS. Here’s to another 30 years :-)
Happy 30th anniversary ICIS! Glad to be part of the group!
A 13th point from Julia today, who has scoured the report archive to prove that the ICIS-LOR brand was changed to ICIS in Q4 2005.
Dear Barbara, I joined ICIS in Singapore about a month ago and have been wondering what the initials stood for. Thank you so much for answering that question and so much more. This should be distributed to all new starters I think! cheers, jacqueline