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U.S. Department of Energy

Office of Scientific & Technical Information

Journal Sources

OSTI accelerates knowledge discovery, speeding the advancement of science.

FY 2008

FY 2007

FY 2006

FY 2005

FY 2004

FY 2003

FY 2002

FY 2001

FY 2000

FY 1999

FY 1997

FY 2008

• June 2008 – WorldWideScience Alliance Established

  A multilateral alliance was formalized on June 12 in Seoul, Korea, to govern WorldWideScience.org, the global science gateway.The WorldWideScience Alliance was established to serve as the permanent governance structure of WorldWideScience.org. WorldWideScience.org introduced federated searching across global science sources and gives citizens, researchers and anyone interested in science the capability to search science portals not easily accessible through popular search technology. The Alliance consists of 13 founding member organizations representing 38 countries. OSTI conceived of the global science gateway and developed the application.

• June 2008 – DOE Data Explorer Launched

  On June 6, OSTI introduced a new resource, the DOE Data Explorer, for discovering Department of Energy scientific research data wherever they reside. This data discovery tool was developed as a way to guide users to scientific research data - such as computer simulations, numeric data files, figures and plots, interactive maps, multimedia, and scientific images – generated in the course of DOE-sponsored research in various science disciplines. It is intended to be particularly useful to students, the public, and to researchers who are new to a field or looking for experimental or observational data outside their normal field of expertise.

FY 2007

• September 2007 – DOepatents Launched

  On September 18, 2007, OSTI introduced a searchable collection of more than 20,000 patent records resulting from U.S. Department of Energy and predecessor-agency funding. The database represents a growing compilation of patents resulting from research supported by DOE, and demonstrates the Department's considerable contribution to scientific progress from the 1940s to the present. DOepatents consists of bibliographic records, with full text where available via either a PDF file or an HTML link to the record at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The database is updated frequently with new information. Highlights include a compilation of noteworthy DOE innovations from the past few decades; resource links for inventors; recent inventions, and patent news.

• June 2007 – WorldWideScience.org Opened to Public

  On June 22, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the British Library, along with eight other participating countries, opened a searchable online global gateway to science information from 15 national portals. The gateway, WorldWideScience.org, introduced federated searching across science sources on a global scale. WorldWideScience.org gives citizens, researchers and anyone interested in science the capability to search science portals not easily accessible through popular search technology such as that deployed by Google, Yahoo! and many other commercial search engines. WorldWideScience.org was developed and is maintained by OSTI.

• April 2007 – Science Accelerator Introduced

  OSTI, introducing scalability in federated government search, developed the initial version of the Science Accelerator to demonstrate the capabilities that will eventually yield the technology to search at least 1,000 scientific databases in parallel. The Science Accelerator of tomorrow will offer a captivating blend of knowledge diffusion technology. Utilizing available resources and building upon the success of OSTI's existing, groundbreaking information access technology, the Science Accelerator will consolidate and expose to distributed search all of the important web-accessible collections of scientific knowledge related to the DOE mission.

• February 2007 – Science.gov 4.0 Launched

  OSTI introduces and deploys DeepRank, which allows search and relevancy ranking across full text of documents when full text is available. DeepRank was deployed on Science.gov Version 4.0, launched in San Francisco February 16, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting [exit federal site]. Science.gov 4.0 also adds a "refine results" option to narrow returns within a search, as well as an "e-mail results" feature so that individuals may e-mail important science information to themselves, friends and family, or colleagues. Version 4.0 offers more ways to view search results: by title, author or date, as well as by relevancy rank or source, as in earlier versions. OSTI hosts Science.gov, the interagency portal to federal scientific databases and websites.

• January 2007 – Global Science Gateway Pact Signed

  The first Statement of Intent to partner in the development of a searchable global science gateway between the U.S. Department of Energy and the British Library [exit federal site] was signed January 21, by Dr. Raymond Orbach, DOE Under Secretary for Science, and Lynne Brindley, [exit federal site] Chief Executive of the British Library. The gateway is intended to eventually make science information resources of many nations accessible via a single Internet portal. The signing ceremony was held at the British Library in London, England, in conjunction with the Winter Meeting of the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI). Invitations to other nations to join the partnership were extended. OSTI is the Energy Department's representative to ICSTI. OSTI will take the lead in developing a global science gateway prototype.

FY 2006

• June 2006 – Science.world Concept Introduced

  OSTI introduced the concept of Science.world at the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information Public Meeting held June 7–8 at the Lister Hill Center Auditorium at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. Science.world would draw on the success of Science.gov and ETDEWEB to expand distributed searching of science resources, building a one-stop "shopping source" for worldwide science information.

• May 16, 2006 – DOE Science Information Sent to Card Catalogues Worldwide

  For the first time, DOE scientific and technical information is made available to card catalogues around the world. Records for DOE scientific and technical information are now available in WorldCat [exit federal site], a database merging catalogues of more than 50,000 libraries in 96 countries and territories. The WorldCat database was built and is maintained collectively by member librarians of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) [exit federal site]. The OCLC is a nonprofit, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs.

• February 17, 2006 – Global Discovery Introduced

  The vision of searching the whole of science was introduced at the 2006 Annual Meeting[exit federal site] of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) symposium, Global Discovery on the Internet, held in St. Louis, February 16–20, 2006. The symposium introduced publicly the concept of scaling scientific database precision-search technologies, and using the exemplary Science.gov portal as a foundation for further research. Search experts shared recent developments and "next steps."

FY 2005

• July 2005 – Science Conference Proceedings Launched

  For the first time, a web portal searched specifically for conference papers and proceedings of interest to the Department of Energy using single-query search across multiple websites and databases. Emphasis is on U.S. conferences hosted by scientific and professional organizations whose areas of focus are of interest to the Department of Energy mission.

• February 28, 2005 – DOE First Agency to Join CrossRef

  OSTI becomes the first government member of CrossRef, a nationally recognized reference-linking service for scholarly and professional content. OSTI agrees to join CrossRef in order to facilitate access to DOE's vast stores of scientific and technical information via references in journal articles.. OSTI and CrossRef use Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to facilitate the access to and re-use of science research reports available electronically on OSTI's Information Bridge.

FY 2004

• September 2004 – Partnership Initiated with Google and Yahoo!

  OSTI opened government databases to commercial search engines. DOE research results are more readily available through a partnership between OSTI and commercial search engines Google and Yahoo! Both search OSTI’s deep web database collection, sending to public desktops a vast amount of DOE science information. Previous to these partnerships, documents inside the deep web had not been easily accessible by the public through these commercial search engines.

• May 2004 – Science.gov 2.0 Launched

  Science.gov 2.0 introduced relevancy-ranking technology among distributed databases presenting government science search results. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (PDF) officially launched Science.gov 2.0 on May 11 at the Forrestal Building in Washington D.C. Version 2.0 searches 47 million pages of government R&D results from 12 agencies and presents the results to the patrons in relevancy-ranked order. The new technology sorts through government research and rapidly returns information in an order more likely to meet patrons’ needs.

• November 2003 – New OSTI Address: 1 Science.gov Way

  First government agency with ".gov" street address Science.gov hit an unusual milestone when on Nov. 7, 2003 the city of Oak Ridge commemorated the government's science web portal by renaming a road Science.gov Way. The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information was the first government agency with a ".gov" street address: 1 Science.gov Way. OSTI hosts to Science.gov, the gateway to authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. Government agencies, including research and development results.

FY 2003

• July 2003 – E-print Network Introduced

  E-print Network opened unique scientific communications E-print Network: Research Communications for Scientists and Engineers provides a unique gateway to electronic scientific communications published by scientists in disciplines of concern to the Department of Energy. It was designed to facilitate peer exchange and scientific advancement by taking thousands of isolated islands of preprints, post prints, and "never prints" and make them act as if they are integrated into a searchable whole. The deep web search feature allows for searching the full text across hundreds of thousands of eprints in the collection.

FY 2002

• December 2002 – Science.gov Launched

  Science.gov was the first-ever search capability across major science agencies. The Science.gov Alliance, an interagency working group of 14 organizations from 10 major science agencies, announced that the American public was connected as never before to U.S. Government science and technology. Science.gov makes available reliable information resources selected by the respective agencies as their best science information. Science.gov is hosted by OSTI, which also supplies the site's "deep web search" capability.

• November 2001 – Transition to Electronic Reporting Completed

  With leadership and coordination provided by OSTI, DOE completed the transition to electronic scientific/technical reporting. Electronic reporting allowed the deliverables coming from DOE research and development projects, whether performed by Labs, grantees, or contractors, to be made permanently available to other researchers and the public in searchable electronic formats. Such electronic reporting increased the use of DOE-generated reports, with a 74% increase in usage over the previous year.

FY 2001

• September 2001 – Energy Citations Database: DOE and Public Versions Available

  
  

  The Energy Citations Database provided for the first time online access to bibliographic records for energy and energy-related scientific and technical information from DOE and its predecessor agencies: the Energy Research & Development Administration (ERDA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Energy Citations Database provided researchers and the public access to 2 million citations from 1948 forward. It was awarded a Commendation by the advisory committee serving the U. S. Superintendent of Documents and the Government Printing Office.

• April 2001 – Science.gov Alliance Formed

  The formation of the Science.gov Alliance was the first step toward achieving the goal of a unified navigation path to government science. Over 60 participants from 35 different organizations participated in the "Strengthening the Public Information Infrastructure for Science" workshop held April 18–19, 2001 at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The result was formation of the Science.gov Alliance and endorsement of the concept for Science.gov, an interagency science portal. The Workshop was sponsored by DOE and organized by the CENDI Information Managers Group, the University of Maryland Center for Information Policy, the DOE, the NIST, and the National Science Foundation.

FY 2000

• 2000 – PrePRINT Alerts Launched

  This service provided the first personalized alert service that harvests information from the deep web. Users received an automated notification of the most current preprints from 28 databases. Individuals simply set up a personalized profile, and the newest preprint information was delivered to their desktops via e-mail on a weekly basis.

• August 2000 – GrayLIT Network Launched

  The GrayLIT Network was the first interagency portal for full-text technical reports located at DOE, the Department of Defense (DOD), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). With a single distributed query, users could search the DOE Information Bridge, the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Report Collection; the EPA National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS); the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Reports; and the NASA Langley Technical Reports, all with full text online. GrayLIT Network was the single largest source of Federal gray literature available at the time.

• August 2000 – Federal Research and Development (R&D) Project Summaries Launched

  Federal R&D Project Summaries included research descriptions, summaries and awards by three of the major sponsors of research in the Federal government.   With a single distributed query, users could search these databases:  Department of Energy R&D Project Summaries; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) CRISP (Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects) Current Awards; and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Award Data..

• May 2000 – Physical Sciences Workshop Held

  OSTI convened a distinguished panel of experts in science, science policy, information science, and scientific publishing at the National Academy of Sciences. Panelists and participants considered issues related to communication, dissemination, and use of information in the physical sciences and make recommendations for increasing the productivity of the scientific enterprise in the United States. The Workshop Report laid the foundation for Science.gov.

• January 31, 2000 – PrePRINT Network Launched

  The PrePRINT Network was the first searchable gateway providing access to preprint servers from around the world covering such disciplines as physics, mathematics, chemistry, and other topics of interest to the Department with a single query. Links to over 4,000 sites representing more than half of the preprint websites in the world and housing over 340,000 documents were available. Researchers could browse or search specific sites or search selected deep web content.

FY 1999

• April 21, 1999 – EnergyPortal Search Introduced

  The first product of its kind in government, EnergyPortal Search enabled searching across the deep web content of over 500 heterogeneous databases and websites linked to EnergyFiles. EnergyPortal provided single-query searching of entire OSTI databases as well as those of other federal agencies and combines information residing at different locations into an integrated data set.

• March 28, 1999 – DOE Research and Development (R&D) Accomplishments Database Launched

  The DOE Research and Development (R&D) Accomplishments Database was the first fully searchable full-text database showcasing information about the outcomes of past DOE R&D that have had significant economic impact, improved people's lives, or been widely recognized as a remarkable advance in science. This database improved the visibility of DOE accomplishments by broadening and integrating access to these important advances.

• October 1998 – Electronic Report Submission Capability via E-Link Introduced

  The DOE STI processing system , called "DOE Energy Link" or "E-Link," broke new ground as an innovative tool for electronic submission of DOE reports and other R&D results. It allowed the STIP community to electronically announce new STI via the web. Additionally, for the first time, producers could provide the Internet address for the STI posted at their site, streamlining the process for making the reports available to users.

FY 1997

• September 1997 – Scientific and Technical Information Program (STIP) Strategic Plan Issued

  The first DOE-wide strategic plan for the scientific and technical information called for the transition of the DOE complex to electronic format for scientific and technical information. The plan, developed in conjunction with DOE program managers, field elements, and contractors, set goals for implementing the electronic reporting environment across the department.

• September 1997 – DOE Information Bridge Launched

  The DOE Information Bridge was the first system to provide searchable full-text and bibliographic records of DOE sponsored research report literature. The DOE Information Bridge provided over 60,000 reports from 1995 forward. This system, originally made available to DOE and DOE contractors, was introduced to the public in April 1998.

• June 1, 1997 – R&D Project Summaries Launched

  R&D Project Summaries was introduced as the first free web-accessible product to provide access to over 20,000 R&D projects ongoing within DOE. This product enabled DOE to educate and inform the general public of its current research and development activities. R&D Project Summaries has been recognized as an award-winning product.

• May 1997 – EnergyFiles: Virtual Library of Energy Science and Technology Launched

  EnergyFiles: Virtual Library of Energy Science and Technology was unveiled as the first web-based virtual library providing easy access to over 500 widely diverse collections of both DOE and worldwide energy-related STI. This award-winning system assimilated databases and websites into an energy information environment available to researchers and the general public from a single source.