Gateway Celebration: Putting .gov on the Map

Walt Warnick, Director, DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Welcome to the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, known as "OSTI." We are part of the Office of Science under the Department of Energy, and we are the Home of science.gov, which is our reason for being here today. Specifically, we are gathered to rename a road. The road alongside OSTI is now called Science.gov Way.

Today's Gateway Celebration is unique in several ways. First, I venture to say that this is the first .gov road in America! But what that road symbolizes is also unique. The road commemorates the Internet gateway, science.gov., which is a portal into the world's largest collection of science information. Information from 17 government science organizations is available in one place, for the first time, to everyone in the nation, everyone in the world.

Science.gov literally puts .gov on the map and that in itself is special. To do so not in Silicon Valley, nor in Seattle, but here in Oak Ridge, is special too. OSTI is pleased to bring this gateway for public understanding of science to the Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor.

Science.gov could not have been created without the hard work of many, many people. That includes scores in attendance here and scores more who worked on science.gov, but who could not be here today. These people deserve the thanks of everyone who loves science.

The larger story is the enormous human investment captured by science.gov. The results of literally millions of person-years of government R&D – results such as those generated right down the road at Oak Ridge National Laboratory – are communicated through science.gov. It is a first step toward a new science information infrastructure.

Now I especially want to welcome and thank our esteemed guests.

• From the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which sponsors so much of the research found at science.gov, Milt Johnson, Deputy Director of Operations.
• From DOE's Oak Ridge Operations Office, Gerald Boyd, Manager, and George Malosh, Deputy Manager for Laboratory Operations.
• From Battelle Memorial Institute, Carl F. Kohrt, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bill Madia, Executive Vice President for Laboratory Operations.
• From Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which continues to raise the bar of excellence of science research, Director Jeff Wadsworth.
• From the U.S. Geological Survey, Tom Lahr, Chief of Information Management, and co-chair of the science.gov Alliance.
• From the U.S. Government Printing Office, one of our partners in science.gov, Salene Dalecky.
• Also, we are particularly pleased that Derek Winstanley is with us today. Derek is Chief of the Illinois State Water Survey and was a member of the 2000 Trivelpiece Workshop – where the vision was born for which science.gov is but the first step.
• And we welcome Abe Lederman, President of Deep Web Technologies in New Mexico, whose technical genius underlies the special search feature of science.gov
• A big thanks to Carolyn Jensen of Senator Bill Frist's office, for sharing in our celebration today; and to Linda Ponce and Helen Hardin from Congressman Zach Wamp's office. A special thanks goes to Congressman Wamp, for his vital support and enthusiasm for our work. In addition, we welcome State Representative Jim Hackworth.
• We are happy to see in the audience Mary Helen Hitson, who came up with the concept of nabbing the domain name science.gov for DOE, and then succeeded in actually obtaining it.