WorldWideScience.org: Bringing Light to Grey
WorldWideScience.org
Bringing Light to Grey
Brian A. Hitson
Associate Director
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of EnergyIntroduction
Opening Remarks
What is "Grey"
• Wikipedia: "…a body of materials that cannot be found easily through conventional channels such as publishers… "
• " …information that is not searchable or accessible through conventional search engines or subject directories and is not generally produced by commercial publishing organisations." (National Library of Australia)
• Webster's Dictionary: "An achromatic colour between the extremes of black and white."
Defining grey literature - examples
"Between the extremes of black and white"
• published journals
• books
• professional society conference proceedings
• preprints
• e-prints
• technical reports lectures
• numeric data sets
• audio/visual media
• blogs
• fora, etc.
• ideas
• concepts
• thought
Grey = Deep
Grey literature also used to describe "deep web".
Two Key Challenges of the "Deep"
1. What you don't know can hurt you (or, at least, it could help you).
Challenges of grey literature.
Expand on: storage/preservation issues, accessibility, and exponential growth
Two Key Challenges of the "Deep"
2. Time = money and delayed progress.
Challenges of grey literature.
Expand on: storage/preservation issues, accessibility, and exponential growth
Overcoming Challenges of the "Deep"
Federated search drills down to the deep web where scientific databases reside
Surface Web
Deep Web Databases
First Deep Web Search Engine: Science.gov
How federated searching enables better access to grey literature
Prominent Deep Web Search Engines
• Science.gov
• ScienceAccelerator.gov
• E-print Network
• Science Conference Proceedings
• Federal R&D Project Summaries
WorldWideScience.org – makes grey literature from around the world available Background/history of WWS.
WorldWideScience.org Databases/Portals
WorldWideScience.org History
• Concept introduced by OSTI Director, Walt Warnick, June 2006, Bethesda, Maryland
• Bilateral U.S.(DOE)/U.K. (British Library) partnership, January 2007, London
WorldWideScience.org History Continued
• Demonstration of first prototype, June 2007, Nancy, France
• Multilateral governance structure, WorldWideScience Alliance, established June 2008, Seoul
• Common ingredient: International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI)
WorldWideScience.org Facts and Figures
• Searches 49 science databases and portals sponsored by governments and national institutions in 54 countries
• Covers scientific literature from over three-fourths of the world's population
• Includes a vast quantity of science (over 375 million pages), much of which is grey literature
WorldWideScience Search Results
ETDEWEB Bibliographic Citation
OpenSIGLE, System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe
Bergen Open Research Archive (BORA-UiB)


