News Media Contact(s):
Jeff Sherwood, DOE, (202) 586-5806
Cathey Daniels, OSTI, (865) 576-9539
For Immediate Release
June 22, 2007
Global Science Gateway Now Open
WorldWideScience.org opens public access to more than 200 million pages
of international research information
WASHINGTON, DC--The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the British
Library, along with eight other participating countries, today opened an
online global gateway to science information from 15 national portals.
The gateway, WorldWideScience.org <http://www.worldwidescience.org/>,
gives citizens, researchers and anyone interested in science the
capability to search science portals not easily accessible through
popular search technology such as that deployed by Google, Yahoo! and
many other commercial search engines.
"Scientific research results are archived globally in a plethora of
sources, many unknown and unreachable through usual search engines," Dr.
Raymond L. Orbach, DOE Under Secretary for Science, said. "This
international partnership will open up this vast reservoir of knowledge
in a rapid and convenient manner, something that will add great value to
our existing knowledge."
Relying on a novel technology called federated search,
WorldWideScience.org gives science information consumers a single entry
point for searching far-reaching science portals in parallel, with only
one query, saving time and effort. As WorldWideScience.org grows, it
will capitalize on existing technology to search vast collections of
science information distributed across the globe, enabling much-needed
access to smaller, less well-known sources of highly valuable science.
Following the model of Science.gov, the U.S. interagency science portal
that relies on content published by each participating U.S. agency,
WorldWideScience.org will rely on scientific resources published by each
participating nation.
The U.S. contribution to WorldWideScience.org is Science.gov
<http://www.science.gov/>, the U.S. government's one-stop searchable
portal to major science databases of federal science agencies. In
addition to the U.S. and the U.K., the inaugural WorldWideScience.org
portal provides access to research information in English from
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and the
Netherlands. The intent is for WorldWideScience.org to become a
world-class Web facility that lets any scientist, any citizen, anywhere,
easily find the research results of any nation in any language.
WorldWideScience.org was developed and is maintained by the Office of
Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), a program within DOE's
Office of Science. OSTI has extensive experience in offering searching
of distributed, deep Web databases, having played a central role in the
development of Science.gov and other Web products that scientists and
citizens access over 50 million times per year.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic
research in the physical sciences in the nation and helps ensure U.S.
world leadership across a broad range of scientific
disciplines. Additional information is available at the Office of
Science <http://www.science.doe.gov/>.
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.
