Knowledge Discovery & Scientific Advancement
Dr. Walter Warnick, Director
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI)
FY06 CENDI annual Conference
University of Maryland Inn and Conference Center
September 7-8, 2005
(Slide 1)Slide 2: Welcome
We look forward to the coming year -- new faces, new ideas, new energy.
Slide 3:
And a special welcome to Keynote Speaker:
Teresa Fryberger
Assistant Director for Environment OSTIP
Slide 4: 2005 was a good year
Science.gov Alerts Launch Feb. 2005, AAAS
Terminology Resources List Spring 2005
PDF in Government Environment NARA Workshop, May 2005
Now it's time to plan for next year
Slide 5: R&D spending tops $120 billion
CENDI agencies represent 97% of the Federal R&D budget
CENDI increases productivity of this vast R&D effort
Slide 6:
It is well know that science builds on the work that has come before.
Issac Newton expressed this thought most eloquently in 1676, when he wrote: "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Slide 7: Science progresses when knowledge is shared
Corollary: Speeding up diffusion of knowledge will accelerate scientific progress
Slide 8: Together we are entering a new era of Knowledge Diffusion & Global Discovery
Simultaneous, ranked search of distributed digital collections -- made broadly available via the Internet -- speeds up diffusion of scientific knowledge and accelerates scientific progress.
Slide 9: Already CENDI organizations have made tremendous strides
We have undergone radical transformation with the advent of the Internet.
At OSTI alone, the number of information transactions is many hundreds of times higher than our pre-Internet days.
Slide 10: A measure of progress: 11 years
It has only been 11 years since DOE posted its first home page.
Of course, by today's standards, that home page was primitive.
To draw an analogy, let's look at another transformational technology …
Slide 11: Ford's beginnings Model A -- 1903
Slide 12: 11 years later -- 1914
This was amazing progress for Henry Ford, but from our perspective …
Slide 13:
There were still decades upon decades of progress to come.
Slide 14:
And innovation must continue
Slide 15: So the future is unpredictable
Our position today -- 11 years after the first real deployment of the Internet -- is not unlike the position of Ford 11 years after the launch of its first model.
Slide 16: There are no facts about the future
But we can make some predictions …
Slide 17: Prediction #1: There is likely to be a Ford in 2015
But we can't draw it.
Slide 18: Prediction #2: There is likely to be an Internet in 2015
But we can't know its features.
Slide 19: But we do know …
Ford didn't just invent the car. He revolutionized transportation and changed human behavior
- Ford made the car more user-friendly
- Ford made the car faster
- Ford made the car relatively easy to operate
- Ford made the car a part of every household
Slide 20: So a second parallel
- Just as Ford sensed the burden of transportation was an obstacle to human progress, we know that the burden of searching is an obstacle to science progress.
- Ford transformed the behavior of the traveling public. We are transforming the behavior of the research scientist.
Slide 21:
Our job at CENDI: Do everything we can to make use of the evolving internet to diffuse knowledge related to our agency missions.
Slide 22: Our near-term opportunities are emerging to speed knowledge diffusion
- Science.gov 3.0
- Compilation of Agency Practices for Journal Access
- Enhancement of CENDI Tools
- NFAIS Annual Conference
- AAAS Symposium
- ASIS&T Annual Meeting
- DASER II Summit
- Science.gov 4.0
Slide 23: Milestone: OSTI becomes law with Energy Policy Act of 2005
"The Secretary, through the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, shall maintain within the Department publicly available collections of scientific and technical information resulting from research, development, demonstration, and commercial applications activities supported by the Department."
Slide 24: Mid-term Opportunities
Speed knowledge diffusion
- Expand volume
- Transform precision search
- Beyond text
Collaborative search, enhancing knowledge, advancing science
Slide 25:
Speed knowledge diffusion
Expand volume
- Add to existing databases
- Add new databases
Collaborative search, enhancing knowledge, advancing science
Slide 26:
Speed knowledge diffusion
- Transform precision search
- Deploy new technologies as in Science.gov 3.0
- Develop next generation technologies as in Science.gov 4.0
Collaborative search, enhancing knowledge, advancing science
Slide 27:
Speed knowledge diffusion
Beyond text
- Numeric data, audio, video, etc.
Collaborative search, enhancing knowledge, advancing science
Slide 28:
The next two days promise to be enlightening and exciting.
In two days, let's leave here with a roadmap to tangible results for the coming year.


