U.S. Department of Energy

WorldWideScience.org – Searching
Global Science in Seconds
Special Libraries Association Annual Conference
Washington State Convention Center
Seattle, WA
June 16, 2008

OSTI Mission

To advance science and sustain technological creativity by making R&D findings available and useful to DOE researchers and the American people.

Science Progresses as Knowledge Is Shared

OSTI Corollary:

If the sharing of knowledge is accelerated, discovery is accelerated.

These are profound implications for all of us in the information business!

A key piece of science discovery . . .

Information – it feeds discovery.

Thought Transfer

Knowledge is contagious, and it's our job to make sure everyone "catches" it!

To that end, we have studied the contact rate and found that researchers will "catch" an idea faster if the contact rate between scientists is accelerated.

The Spread of Knowledge Can Be Measured

The Spread of Knowledge about Feynman Diagrams

Discovery path of US and UK authors

From The Power of a Good Idea: Quantitative Modeling of the Spread of Ideas from Epidemiological Models, Luis M. A. Bettencourt, Ariel Cintron-Arias, Carlos Castillo-Chavez, David Kaiser, May 2005.

The Spread of Knowledge Can Be Modeled

Path of Best Trajectory

From Report for the Office of Scientific and Technical Information: Population Modeling of the Emergence and Development of Scientific Fields, Luis M. A. Bettencourt, Carlos Castillo-Chavez, David Kaiser, David E. Wojick, October 2006.

The Spread of Knowledge Can Be Accelerated

Paths of Acceleration

From Report for the Office of Scientific and Technical Information: Population Modeling of the Emergence and Development of Scientific Fields, Luis M. A. Bettencourt, Carlos Castillo-Chavez, David Kaiser, David E. Wojick, October 2006.

But before we can accelerate the sharing of knowledge . . .

. . .we must dispel the misperception that popular search engines are already doing the job.

• Google

• Yahoo!

• MSN

Much of Science is Non-Googleable

In fact, the vast majority of science information is in databases within the deep Web – or the non-Googleable Web – where popular search engines cannot go.

We in the information business need to recognize this gap between availability and need, and seize the opportunity to ...

Provide science information consumers with better tools.

The Web Is Transformational Technology for Sharing Knowledge

The Web is still young and will certainly hold surprises as it evolves, just as another well-known transformational technology held surprises.

Eclipsing Current Search Technology

Google

Google is capitalizing on this early era of Web technology and is hugely successful, powering more than half the world's searching.

But we must remember that we are just in the beginning of this transformation. Further technological transformations may very well eclipse today's search technology!

A new, promising technology is now emerging - federated search.

We need systems, such as federated search, that probe the deep Web.

Federated search drills down to the deep Web where scientific databases reside.

Unlike the Google sitemap protocol solution, federated search places no burden on the database owners.

OSTI has recognized the need to bridge this gap; our emerging solution is "federated" search.

Interfaces similar to Google

Under the hood, NOT like Google

Science.gov

50 million pages of federal science information from 13 U.S. science agencies

Celebrating 5th Anniversary

Science Accelerator

Key DOE databases

Celebrating 1st Anniversary

Our most recent federated search engine is WorldWideScience.org – the global science gateway.

200 million pages of global science information.

From handshake to intercontinental alliance

In January 2007, Dr. Raymond Orbach, DOE Under Secretary for Science, and Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, signed a Statement of Intent to partner for searchable global science gateway.

On June 12, 2008, officials gathered in Korea to formally establish a multilateral alliance that will govern the rapidly growing gateway to the world's research findings.

WorldWideScience Alliance Signing Ceremony
June 12, 2008

The WorldWideScience Alliance was formalized on June 12, 2008, in Seoul, Korea, by officials from 13 organizations representing 38 countries. WorldWideScience.orgis the online gateway to science information issued from nations around the world. The signing ceremony was the culminating event at the ICSTI 2008 General Assembly, hosted by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information.

WorldWideScience.org was launched in June 2007 and now searches 32 portals from 44 countries

Enables access to prominent as well as smaller, less well-known sources of highly valuable science

WorldWideScience.org allows users to search multiple data sources around the globe from a single query search box.

What Is WorldWideScience.org?

• A federation of the leading science portals sponsored by the governments and national institutions of 44 countries

• A quantity of science (more than 200 million pages from every inhabited continent) comparable to that searchable via Google, with the bulk of the science being non-Googleable

• A contrast to content searched by Google – WWS.org content tends to be scholarly

• A breakthrough in content enabled by breakthrough technology

• Recent and future enhancements include clustering, alerts, and translation capabilities

WorldWideScience.org Search Results

Current National Partners in WorldWideScience.org

Current National Partners in WorldWideScience.org (cont.)

Founding Alliance Members

• Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) – Canada
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) – Finland
• Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique (INIST) – France
• TIB – German National Library of Science and Technology - Germany
• Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) - Japan
• Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) – Korea
• Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Portugal, Spain
• Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – South Africa
• African Journals Online (AJOL) – Representing 24 African countries
• British Library – United Kingdom
• Science.gov Alliance – United States
• International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI)
• International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP)

Alliance Executive Board

• Chair – Richard Boulderstone, British Library

• Deputy Chair – Pam Bjornson, Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information

• Treasurer – Tae-Sul Seo, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information

• Ex-Officio Member – Walter Warnick, WorldWideScience.org Operating Agent, U.S. DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information

• Ex-Officio Member – Herbert Gruttemeier, ICSTI President, French Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique

• At-Large Member – Yvonne Halland, Strategic Information Resources Coordinator, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa

Current WorldWideScience.org Sources

• African Journals Online
• Article@INIST (France)
• Australian Antarctic Data Centre
• Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information
• CSIR Research Space (South Africa)
• Defence Research and Development Canada (Canada)
• Directory of Open Access Jornals (Sweeden)
• DEFF Global E Prints (Denmark)
• DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
• Electronic Table of Contents (ETOC) (United Kingdom)
• Indian Academy of Sciences
• Indian Institute of Science Eprints
• Indian Institute of Science Theses & Dissertations
• Indian Medlars Centre
• J-EAST (Japan)
• J-STAGE (Japan)
• J-STORE (Japan)
• Journal@rchive (Japan)
• Korea Science (Korea)
• NARCIS (Netherlands)
• Science.gov (United States)
• Scientific Electronic Library Online (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Portugal, Spain)
• Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868-1961 (New Zealand)
• UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)
• Vascoda (Germany)
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Publications Register
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Research Register

With just one click, your query will be sent from our server in Oak Ridge, TN, to databases around the world. Those databases will return results in real time that will then be relevancy-ranked and returned to your desktop all in a matter of seconds.

The Stage Is Set for the Future

We are ready to scale up our efforts in federated search.

Simply put, we intend to make more science accessible to more people than anyone has done before.