Global Search and Distributed Repositories: Science.World
Walter Warnick, Director
Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI)
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI)
Public Conference:
PARTNERING IN SCIENCE INFORMATION: NECESSITIES OF CHANGE
Lister Hill Center Auditorium at the National Library of MedicineBethesda, Maryland
7–8 June 2006 (Slide 1)
Slide 2: Accelerating science knowledge diffusion accelerates science progress
Slide 3: Science depends on the diffusion of knowledge
Isaac 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 4: Sequential diffusion is too slow!
"The calculus of innovation is really quite simple:
- Knowledge drives innovation;
- Innovation drives productivity;
- Productivity drives our economic growth.
That's all there is to it."
– William R. Brody
President, The Johns Hopkins University
Member, Council on Competitiveness
U.S. Competitiveness: The Innovation Challenge
Testimony to the House Committee on Science
July 21, 2005
Slide 5: Often the knowledge scientists need resides in distant communities
- Acoustics
- Agricultural Engineering
- Astrodynamics
- Bioinformatics
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Cosmology
- Cryogenics
- Cybernetics
- Geology
- Genomics
- Immunology
- Limnology
- Materials Science
- Meteorology
- Nanoscience
- Oceanography
- Plasma Physics
- Radiology
- Seismology
- Spectroscopy
- Stereochemistry
Slide 6: The Deep Web Is HUGE!
- 99% of scientific documents in databases in Deep Web
- Deep Web is not accessible to search engines and robots
Slide 7: Got documents? Need discovery?
Slide 8: No time for "door-to-door" searching
Slide 9: Current early models for global discovery
Slide 10: Deep Web
Current models include only a few international sources
Only small parts of the deep Web are metasearchable
Slide 11: Energy Technology Data Exchange
Slide 12: Current ETDE Member Countries
- Brazil
- Canada
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Korea, Republic of
- Mexico
- The Netherlands
- Norway
- Portugal
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- United States
Slide 13: ETDE's Distributed Searching Strategy
ETDE's Distributed Searching Strategy
- ETDEWEB's new distributed search feature makes R&D information from 39 databases and more than 1,800 Websites available with one search
- Science.gov
- Science Conferences
Slide 14: Example of International Federated Searching
Slide 15: "Distributed Search Results"
Slide 16: Distributed Search Results (cont.)
Slide 17: "Distributed Search Results, Documents from ETDEWEB"
Slide 18: Distributed Search Results, Documents from CORDIS
Information Service and IEA Energy Information Centre
Slide 19: "Distributed Search Results, Documents from the Science.gov Web site"
Slide 20: Distributed Search Results, Documents from Nordic Energy Index and the Danish Energy R&D Projects
Slide 21: Overcoming Challenges
- Scalability
- Different languages
- Ongoing viability of the deep Web resources themselves (managing the perception that Science.world eliminates the need to maintain individual deep Web databases)
- Including "user authenticated" systems (which, in many cases, are some of the best)
Slide 22: Conclusion
The U.S. Department of Energy is a willing collaborator in pursuing the vision of Science.world.
We welcome other interested parties to begin a dialogue and a plan of action for making this vision a reality.


