Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data is published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); content is published online daily, collected into quarterly online and printed issues (4 issues per year). The objective of the Journal is to provide critically evaluated physical and chemical property data, fully documented as to the original sources and the criteria used for evaluation, preferably with uncertainty analysis. Critical reviews of measurement techniques may also be included if they shed light on the accuracy of available data in a technical area. Papers reporting correlations of data or estimation methods are acceptable only if they are based on critical data evaluation and if they produce “reference data”—the best available values for the relevant properties. The journal is not intended as a publication outlet for original experimental measurements such as those normally reported in the primary research literature, nor for review articles of a descriptive or primarily theoretical nature.
One source of contributions to the Journal is The National Standard Reference Data System (NSRDS), which was established in 1963 as a means of coordinating on a national scale the production and dissemination of critically evaluated reference data in the physical sciences. Under the Standard Reference Data Act (Public Law 90-396) the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the U.S. Department of Commerce has the primary responsibility in the Federal Government for providing reliable scientific and technical reference data. The Standard Reference Data Program of NIST coordinates a complex of data evaluation centers, located in university, industrial, and other Government laboratories as well as within NIST, which are engaged in the compilation and critical evaluation of numerical data on physical and chemical properties retrieved from the world scientific literature. The participants in this NIST-sponsored program, together with similar groups under private or other Government support which are pursuing the same ends, compose the National Standard Reference Data System.
The primary focus of the NSRDS is on well-defined physical and chemical properties of well-characterized materials or systems. An effort is made to assess the accuracy of data reported in the primary research literature and to prepare compilations of critically evaluated data which will serve as reliable and convenient reference sources for the scientific and technical community.