Special Libraries Association Conference
Science and Technology Contributed Papers Session
Philadelphia, PA 
June 12, 2000

 Karen J. Spence, Assistant Director, Program Integration
 Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI)
US Department of Energy

Providing Energy Information At The Desktop

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) provides a suite of innovative information resources for a stronger America. Included in these resources are world-class products that address the three main ways by which researchers disseminate their findings: the DOE Information Bridge, PubSCIENCE, and the PrePRINT Network. These products are key components of the suite of resources provided through EnergyFiles, a virtual library of energy-related scientific and technical information. Each product can be searched individually or in parallel with other energy-related resources using EnergyPortal, which is the ground-breaking distributed search mechanism of EnergyFiles. This history of success lays the foundation for OSTI's new initiative, a DOE National Library.


Introduction

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) provides government research and development (R&D) information to geographically-dispersed users. Technological advances are being used to incorporate capabilities such as distributed searching of bibliographic citations and full-text documents. Since 1997, OSTI has made full-text energy-related scientific and technical information electronically accessible to researchers and the public at no cost to the user. This has been achieved through a suite of award-winning Internet resources that are available at the desktop, providing easier, faster, cheaper, more complete, and more convenient means of accessing and using scientific and technical information.

One-stop shopping access to this suite of resources is provided through EnergyFiles, a Web-based virtual library that provides easy access to collections of both DOE and worldwide energy-related scientific and technical information. EnergyFiles contains a search mechanism, EnergyPortal, that is easy to use, integrates parallel searching, and retrieves information from heterogeneous and geographically-dispersed databases and Web sites. EnergyPortal could be the government's first full-text distributed search of databases across multiple agencies. Key components of EnergyFiles are DOE R&D Project Summaries (current research), DOE R&D Accomplishments (outcomes of past research), the DOE Information Bridge (grey literature), PubSCIENCE (peer-reviewed journal literature), and the PrePRINT Network (preprints). These products have been designed to provide remote access to billions of dollars of energy-related research performed by DOE and its collaborators.

User Needs Assessment

During September and October, 1996, OSTI conducted a user needs assessment to better serve the DOE customers and stakeholders. Key users within the following groups were identified: scientists and researchers; scientific and technical information managers and intermediaries; DOE Program Offices, Field Offices, and contractor organizations; information industry contacts; and governments agency contacts. Data were gathered via qualitative and quantitative questionnaires, telephone interviews, and subsequent follow-up e-mail communications. Three recurring needs were identified: 1) a single point of access to the Department's scientific and technical information and related resources, 2) collaborative information solutions available on the Web, and 3) seamless desktop access to and delivery of full text.

The findings in this assessment led to the development and growth of EnergyFiles, the DOE Information Bridge, PubSCIENCE, and the PrePRINT Network. Although a primary targeted audience for these resources was the DOE community, a broader group of users were considered in the planning and development of these resources. This broader group of users (over 1.5 million annually) includes scientists, researchers, educators, students, industry, and the general public.

Ongoing user input is received via e-mail communications and /or the use of Comment forms provided for each resource. A product management mechanism for each resource includes a regular review and evaluation of user input and feedback.

Transition to Electronic Services

For nearly fifty years, access to full-text DOE scientific and technical information was provided via microfiche or paper. Full-text microfiche DOE reports were distributed to approximately 300 subscribing Government Printing Office (GPO) depository libraries. Users either had to travel to one of these libraries to obtain free access to the collections or they had to purchase the reports, in microfiche or paper, from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

Feedback from the User Needs Assessment supported OSTI's decision to transition from a paper and microfiche environment to an electronic environment. Electronic delivery eliminates the problem of narrow physical availability and makes resources available via the Internet. With the transition to an electronic environment, OSTI has not only made full-text DOE reports available to the public at their desktops but has also developed a suite of resources that is the foundation for a DOE National Library Initiative.

EnergyFiles

The EnergyFiles  Virtual Library Collections of Energy Science and Technology provides information, tools, and technologies to facilitate the finding and use of scientific resources and capabilities in planning and conducting energy-related research. Its goal is to maximize access to, and usefulness of, the vast body of knowledge that exists in the energy community. EnergyFiles is a dynamic information system that offers users, participants and contributors the opportunity to leverage collections and capabilities and to maximize use of energy-related scientific and technical information.

EnergyFiles was released in May 1997 with an initial collection of 50 energy and related resources. As the collection size grew to approximately 100, users indicated a desire for segmentation by subject area. This was addressed in April 1998 with the addition of the Subject Pathways feature in conjunction with the incorporation of an additional 100 resources. Each Subject Pathway contains various types of resources specific to that discipline. The fourteen subject areas are: Biology and Medicine; Chemistry; Energy Storage, Conversion and Utilization; Engineering; Environmental Sciences, Safety and Health; Fission and Nuclear Technologies; Fossil Fuels; Geosciences; Materials Science; Mathematics, Computing and Information Science; Physics; Plasma Physics and Fusion; Power Transmission, Distribution and Plants; and Renewable Energy. Also provided is a Subject Pathway to multidisciplinary resources. Types of resources available via the Pathways are scientific and technical collections and databases; electronic journals, preprints, and conference proceedings; related resources; and a virtual workspace.

A year after the incorporation of Subject Pathways, the EnergyFiles search mechanism, EnergyPortal Search, was unveiled. It provides for increased site efficiency and ease of knowledge discovery. EnergyPortal has conquered a major obstacle confronting multi-source virtual libraries. It is a unique search capability that provides distributed searching across the decentralized, heterogeneous databases and web sites linked to EnergyFiles. The user no longer needs to select individual links to sift through available information in pursuit of what is relevant. Words or phrases are entered in a single query box and the query is distributed in parallel to the user-selected multiple databases and Web sites residing at diverse locations.

EnergyPortal Search continues to represent a breakthrough in information retrieval. It enables users to search across 27 databases and 500 Web sites using a single query. The sites are maintained by various agencies, are geographically dispersed, and require no standardization in terms of format, software or metadata. The search engine will search full text when available, including the over 3 million pages of text on the DOE Information Bridge; other DOE databases and collections; databases of other agencies such as the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and other resources. When the individual database supports it, the searched word or phrase is highlighted for easy access.

This distributed search capability demonstrates an essential next step in information technology - the integration of parallel searching and retrieving of information from disparate and geographically-dispersed databases and Web sites. The EnergyPortal distributed search transcends other government agencies' full-text information sources. Since it includes only unlimited, unclassified energy-related information, users in government, industry, academia and the public benefit from the addition of this capability. Time is saved through more efficient and effective information retrieval since the information is accessible on the Internet in an organized, searchable format.

Awards and recognitions received by EnergyFiles are:

Usage of EnergyFiles has been broad based. Of 125,000 accesses during FY1999, 21% were from the government, 7% from the education sector, and 72% from the public.

As the development of EnergyFiles progresses, new objectives identified to respond to user requests include the continuing collection development of, and increased access to, energy-related scientific and technical information and related resources; the incorporation of increasingly effective mechanisms for accessing and retrieving information from distributed locations; the capability of fielded searching and searching within the search; and the addition of state-of-the-art tools and technologies to enable researchers, scientists, engineers, and program managers to experiment, collaborate, and share results through a dynamic, easy-to-use electronic medium. Additional possibilities being explored are the incorporation of distributed searching across regulated-access collections, results clustering, and tools to help users make judgments as user data builds.

DOE R&D Project Summaries

DOE R&D Project Summaries  was unveiled in June 1997 to provide the public with access to key corporate information on over 17,000 research and development projects performed since 1995 by the Department's laboratories and other research facilities. It includes DOE research activities in a wide variety of energy-related scientific disciplines. R&D Project Summaries enables DOE to educate and inform the general public of its current research and development activities and provides a mechanism for public access to information about Departmental research capabilities and activities.

The DOE R&D Project Summaries Database provides a tool for both DOE researchers and program managers to share research and development results with all interested parties. It provides simple and full-text searching for quick, easy access to data by novice users, supports complex searching, and makes scientific and technical information easily accessible to DOE customers, stakeholders, and the public.

The Web-based Database contains a subset of the research and development project records submitted for inclusion in the R&D Tracking System, sponsored by the DOE Office of Chief Financial Officer and maintained by OSTI. The subset includes projects that either contain a Program-sponsored funding mechanism of managing and operations (M&O) contractors or are under the scope of Grants, Contracts, or Cooperative Agreements.

DOE R&D Project Summaries received DOE's Information Management Quality Award for Management/Administrative Excellence in 1997 and was recognized with a Hammer Award from Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government in 1999.

Open access to Department of Energy research and development project summaries supports DOE interest in ensuring that scientific and technical information resulting from the Department's efforts is effectively managed and easily accessible to U.S. industry, educators, and the public in order to facilitate responsiveness to customer needs.

DOE R&D Accomplishments

The DOE R&D Accomplishments Web site was unveiled in March 1999 as a central forum for providing the public with information about outcomes of past DOE-sponsored or generated research and development. The outcomes featured have had significant economic impact, have improved people's lives, or have been widely recognized as a remarkable advance in science.

The core of the Web site is the DOE R&D Accomplishments Database, consisting of searchable full-text and bibliographic citations of documents reporting accomplishments from DOE and DOE contractor facilities. The growth potential of the Database will be realized through the active support and participation of the DOE community to fully populate the system.

Users can search full text by word or phrase; browse the title list of available reports; use searchable PDF, which highlights search terms in the document; and download full-text PDF files or single page images. The Database performs best when viewed with Netscape 4.0 or Microsoft Explorer 4.0 or later versions.

Complementing the Database is a page of "Snapshots." It contains links to items or articles that contain information about or identify at least one research and development accomplishment. Snapshots are quick pictures, introductions, overviews, or synopses. When more information about a Snapshots topic is available via the DOE R&D Accomplishments Database, links to full-text reports are identified and provided.

DOE R&D Accomplishments showcases the proud heritage of the Department's research and development and highlights benefits that are being realized now.

DOE Information Bridge

The DOE Information Bridge, unveiled in April 1998 in collaboration with the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), contains DOE report literature from 1995 forward and makes it available electronically at users' desktops. Its design was based on the ideas of a panel of potential users and it continues to be modified to satisfy user requests.

The DOE Information Bridge provides free, convenient, and quick access to full-text DOE research and development reports in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics. The DOE Information Bridge contains over 50,000 full-text reports comprising over 3 million fully-searchable pages. It addresses the limitations of the previously existing system that involved microfiche distribution to Depository Libraries and sales of additional microfiche and paper copies to the public. Users are now remotely accessing and downloading the reports free of charge and in significant volume. Downloads during 1999 exceeded 130,000 (an average of 2,500 per week), giving users a cost avoidance of over $3 million.

The DOE Information Bridge focuses on providing access to scientific and technical reports produced by DOE, DOE national laboratories and DOE contractors. New reports processed by OSTI are added routinely and legacy reports are added as resources permit. Since its introduction, the DOE Information Bridge content has more than doubled.

DOE Information Bridge search options include a basic approach that can be concentrated on specific data fields and an advanced approach that includes Boolean operators to increase search precision. Users can search the entire collection (full text and bibliographic data), or they can search portions of it. Three formats, GIF, PDF and TIFF, are available for viewing the full-text page images. Two formats, PDF (image only) and the original input format, are available for downloading full-text documents. This makes reports far easier to use and eliminates the cumbersome and time-consuming practices associated with searching traditional media.

Beneficiaries of the DOE Information Bridge include report originators, organizations distributing the reports, libraries and reference institutions, users of the reports, and the public. Researchers, scientists, and engineers can review the work of their peers and eliminate costly duplication of effort. Educators can keep abreast of current topics, collect and convey more extensive knowledge, and offer research material to their students. And, equally important, American citizens realize a greater return on their investment by having ready access to federally-funded research information.

Awards and recognitions received by the DOE Information Bridge include

Building and expanding the DOE Information Bridge reinforces DOE's and GPO's commitment to make available DOE research reports and to move federal programs and activities into the ever-expanding world of the Information Age. Goals include doubling the content in the next two years, providing access to full-text documents via Persistent URLs (PURL), the capability to search full-text documents located at remote sites where research is performed, multiple downloading capabilities, date-range searching, statistical reporting enhancements, and search results provided in a user-defined order. These goals have been developed as a direct result of routine user feedback.

Science Communication Trilogy

With the DOE Information Bridge in place to provide Web access to DOE report literature, OSTI then addressed the other two ways in which researchers make their results known. PubSCIENCE was created to provide Web access to peer-reviewed journal literature, and preprints and preprint servers are now available through the PrePRINT Network. These two Web resources are very new and were created to fill a gap in the information delivery/retrieval continuum. They provide a service that was not previously available.

PubSCIENCE

PubSCIENCE  provides a quick, easy, free search service of peer-reviewed scientific journal citations and abstracts. Made available in collaboration with the Government Printing Office (GPO), it is a compendium of searchable, published, peer-reviewed journal citations and abstracts about the physical sciences and other energy-related disciplines. Hyperlinks provide access to publisher servers to obtain full-text articles if the user or organization has a subscription to the journal. If the user lacks such a subscription, access to the full text can be obtained by pay per view, by special arrangement with the publisher, by library access, or through commercial providers.

PubSCIENCE is Web-based and provides a solution to an obvious need in the scientific research and development community. Through a single search, a compendium of scientific and technical journal literature can be accessed. By establishing collaborative agreements with publishing partners, PubSCIENCE facilitates searching and access to approximately 1000 peer-reviewed journal titles representing over twenty major publishers of peer-reviewed scientific and technical information.

PubSCIENCE is modeled after PubMed, which covers medical sciences and is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Like PubMed, PubSCIENCE will continue to expand its current collection with the vision of becoming a comprehensive compendium of searchable, published information about the physical sciences and other disciplines of concern to DOE. Since the inception of PubSCIENCE, there have been an average of 63,000 accesses per month. Of these 14% are government, 19% are education, and 67% are public.

PubSCIENCE makes available peer-reviewed journal citations and abstracts from the most prestigious publishers in the world today. PubSCIENCE participating publishers include:

PubSCIENCE is the convergence of

Not only is the Internet changing the way publishers are thinking about publishing, but it has impacted how government views its role in the dissemination of scientific and technical information as well. PubSCIENCE is an outstanding example of converging interests of the user's desire to access current scientific and technical literature, the Department's desire to facilitate the flow of peer-reviewed scientific and technical information, and publishers' interest in obtaining the widest possible visibility for their published materials.

PrePRINT Network

The PrePRINT Network  was unveiled in January 2000. It is a searchable gateway to preprint sites that contain information about scientific and technical disciplines of concern to DOE. Such disciplines include physics, materials, chemistry, and portions of biology, environmental sciences, and nuclear medicine. Collections and resources included on the PrePRINT Network are provided by academic institutions, government research laboratories, scientific societies, private research organizations, and individual scientists and researchers. The PrePRINT Network facilitates access to these resources, but does not change the content or data provided by the originating site or author. The PrePRINT Network combines these dispersed sites into a comprehensive set of energy research information.

The PrePRINT Network expedites the dissemination of scientists' research results. It provides the capability to encourage, facilitate, and strengthen the personal communication networks that have always been crucial to scientific advancement. Of the almost 8,000 accesses during the first month available, 31% were government, 17% were education, and 52% were public. Accesses are projected to be approximately 100,000 per year.

The rapidly-growing PrePRINT Network is Web-based and provides access to energy-related papers, draft journal articles, and other electronic materials produced by researchers. It provides links to 800 preprint sites housing over 300,000 documents. Over twenty heterogeneous preprint databases are available for distributed cross-searching via a single query. In addition, as a service to users, the PrePRINT Network provides links to over 170 related scientific societies and associations.

The PrePRINT Network offers users three options for locating information. They can browse or search one specific preprint site or a selected set of sites. The Browse option allows users to view an alphabetical listing of all of the sites included in the system and to visit any of the individual sites listed. Within this option, users may also choose to perform an indexed search of the HTML pages of the available sites. This option returns hits for any pages and for linked pages that contain the specified search term, including some items that may not be actual preprints. A second option for searching within the PrePRINT Network, Search Selected Sites, allows users to pulse the search engines of selected preprint sites with a single query. This search capability then compiles the results and returns them to the users. Thirdly, the Subject Pathways option offers users the ability to browse the preprint collections by subject area. This section includes both preprint collections and preprints posted by individual scientists on their own sites.

In most cases, access to the full-text information on the target sites is open, accessible, and free of charge. By eliminating the need to locate individual preprint sites through web searching, researchers can find more relevant information while saving time. The PrePRINT Network is a single point of entry for preprints in the scientific and technical areas. User feedback is overwhelmingly positive and is considered carefully for enhancement opportunities and for ease of use suggestions.

National Library Initiative

With the trilogy of the DOE Information Bridge, PubSCIENCE, and the PrePRINT Network, OSTI efforts have brought significant forms of scientific and technical information to the Web while developing and applying information age technologies and tools to aid in the use of this information. These efforts are the foundation of an initiative to create a DOE National Library  focused on energy, science, and technology.

The DOE National Library Initiative is an investment in strengthening and sustaining U.S. scientific and economic competitiveness for the future in cooperation with the private, public and academic sectors. It will not only avoid duplication and waste of precious resources, but will also harvest the benefits that come when people and institutions work together rather than in isolation. The Initiative will provide a Web-based network of worldwide energy information and resources to the desktops of scientists, engineers, students, teachers, industry, and the public. It will come to fruition with the extensive collaboration of the DOE community, universities, information publishers and distributors, professional societies, and other government agencies.

The DOE National Library Initiative will significantly expand DOE's local presence across the nation. Such an active publicly-oriented regional presence will bring scientific and technical information, energy data and prices, and consumer and educational information to the regional level for application and use at the local level.

The objectives of the DOE National Library Initiative are to deliver to the Nation a permanent, comprehensive resource for accessing and using scientific information; facilitate research and discovery to secure a healthy and competitive science and technology future; raise scientific and technological literacy of all Americans; produce the finest scientists and engineers for the 21st Century; promote scientific research and development (R&D) results as a foundation for future advancements; and establish a National Library that is complementary to existing national libraries in providing Federally-sponsored information to the public. These existing libraries include the National Library of Medicine, the National Agricultural Library, the National Library of Education, the EPA National Library Network, the National Transportation Library, and the National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL).

User Benefits of a National Library focused on energy, science, and technology are a well-organized, comprehensive resource not limited by traditional boundaries; access to both historic and current information; practical information for the consumer; easy, fast, accurate navigation through collections and resources; science education resources for educators and students; remote access to scientific hardware and software; and information alert mechanisms to serve industry and commerce.

The DOE National Library Initiative will provide a foundation for the innovative use of three key resources -- worldwide information, advanced technology, and people -- to deliver validated research information and ensure the Nation's leadership in science and technology. Resource requirements, partnership arrangements, and numerous other planning activities are currently being explored as support for this initiative continues to grow.

Closing

Throughout the development of this suite of resources, OSTI has faced, and continues to face, a variety of challenges. These include building resources that meet user needs; ensuring proper systems support to guarantee resource performance and reliability; ensuring that consistent, properly-processed content is added to each resource in a timely fashion; supporting long-term, continuous availability of each resource; adjusting each resource to fit with changing technology; maintaining visibility on an Internet that is expanding exponentially; and continuing to provide free access to the resources in the face of declining federal funding.

Coupled with OSTI's focus on a DOE National Library Initiative, the current suite of resources supports OSTI's goal of ensuring free, user-friendly, permanent public access to billions of dollars of government-funded energy-related research.

View slides used in presentation.

 

Karen J. Spence
Assistant Director, Office of Program Integration
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
P.O. Box 62
Oak Ridge, TN 37831

Phone: (865) 574-0295
Fax: (865) 241-3826

spencek@osti.gov



 



 

[Revision, April 2000]