Personal Perspectives

Dr. Warnick, you travel quite a bit and make numerous presentations about OSTI's innovative work. What drew you to speak at the Computers In Libraries (CIL) Conference?

Energy Secretary Steven Chu aims to better integrate basic and applied sciences.[1] OSTI's mission [2], products, and services support this goal. Secretary Chu sees the need to build networks to connect research within national labs, universities, and industry. A number of OSTI's research offerings directly facilitate open communication. Secretary Chu seeks to expand international science collaboration. WorldWideScience.org, conceived at OSTI, promotes such collaboration. Secretary Chu wants to link research with solutions to our nation's pressing problems. OSTI, through the DOE SBIR program, encourages small businesses to develop and commercialize technologies that advance the acceleration of science. Secretary Chu values development of engineering talent. OSTI is developing technology that will improve science education.

[Note: This article first appeared in the Federated Search Blog. ]

This is the story of how one organization of the Federal government came to recognize the potential of federated search and then set out to deploy it and encourage its maturation.

Along the way, considerable progress has been made. More science is freely findable on the web today than has ever before been available to the public. Yet, much more progress remains to be made.

On March 2nd I wrote an article for the Federated Search Blog: On credibility  of search results.

The article asserts that a federated search engine is only as good as the quality of the content to which it provides access. While the major consumer-oriented search engines may provide more search results overall, it is left to the user of the search application to sift through the search results to identify which content represents credible scientific and technical information.

As Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Newton was not alone on those shoulders. Everyone in science, from his day to ours, draws on the work of others.

Science is all about the flow of knowledge:  New methods, instruments, techniques, concepts, results, questions, data, etc.  The flows are endless, complex and in all directions.  It is rightly called a diffusion process.  This concept is reflected in a host of statutes that form the legislative basis for OSTI.

Two hundred years ago the gulf between the rich and the common people was huge, illustrated by these photos.  On the left is Doughoregan Manor at Ellicott City, Maryland, largely built in the 1700’s, home of Charles Carroll of Carrolton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  On the right is the cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 located at Hodgenville, Kentucky.  Today, the public view of these times is influenced by the fact that many of the fabulous mansions yet survive, while the cabins that housed common people have long since been replaced.

Sources: Wikipedia articles "Abraham Lincoln" and "Doughoregan Manor".

by Walt Warnick and David Wojick

The immediate goal of science is understanding, rather than social utility.  In the rush of day-to-day activity it is easy to overlook how science allows us to live better. The path from science to better lives is complex and often takes decades.  In broad terms, basic research first hands off its results to applied research.  Applied research then hands off to technology research and development, which then flows into entrepreneurship and finally manufacturing and distribution.  Then, and only then, are great benefits realized from science knowledge.

by Walt Warnick and David Wojick

Compared to the pre-Web world of the early 1990s, OSTI now enables about a thousand-fold more information transactions. An information transaction occurs when the customer receives information he requested, such as delivering the results of a search or following a link clicked to display a document. But the mind-boggling growth in the number of transactions is only part of the story.

Allan Cormack

A young father of two lies in a hospital bed seriously ill. The physician admits he has no treatment. The pancreas is secreting substances that are digesting itself and destroying surrounding tissue. Some patients recover on their own; others simply expire. Only time will tell which fate awaits the young father.

As a staff member involved in OSTI’s Web presence, it was personally satisfying today to hear Google’s J.L. Needham mention OSTI in testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Yesterday my son had an emergency appendectomy – these days a pretty routine procedure. But far from routine was the array of drugs offered to get him through the long night ahead.

In 2005, the idea of creating a global science gateway for the web was conceived at OSTI.  It would make the best collections of scientific information from nations around the world act as if they were a single enormous collection.  It would be searchable via a single query, and it would be available at no cost to anyone anywhere with web access.