Gateway Celebration

Comments from Eleanor Frierson Deputy Director, National Agricultural Library,
and co-chair of the science.gov Alliance

Good afternoon, Dr. Warnick, Dr. Decker, Mr. Mamo, Ms. Roper, Mayor Mr. Bradshaw, special guests, colleagues, and friends.

On behalf of my co-chair, Mr. Tom Lahr of the U.S. Geological Survey, who is also here today, his predecessor Ms. Jane Bortnick Griffith of the National Library of Medicine, the current and past principals of the science.gov Alliance, the science.gov secretariat, and the many colleagues across the federal government who have contributed to making the science.gov gateway service a reality, I am here to help celebrate the success of science.gov and represent them in this wonderful ceremony.

While I can't speak for everyone who's been involved in science.gov, I've certainly had fun developing this voluntary collaboration among 12 Federal agencies, all without centralized appropriated funding or legislative mandate! When we started work on science.gov, in the spring of 2001, those agencies brought to the Internet table their unique information specialties and arranged them on a simple Web site, powered behind the scenes by impressive collaborative intellectual work and fabulous computer systems and software. That science.gov exists today is a credit to many contributors:

1. Dr. Warnick and his colleagues at the Department of Energy, who used their creativity to implement an idea conceived at the Trivelpiece Workshop.
   
   
2. The members of the science.gov Alliance and the CENDI group of scientific and technical information providers to Federal research and development agencies, who decided to move ahead and set up science.gov without extra funding or mandates;
   
   
3. The staff members of FirstGov.gov, who supported the early stages of science.gov development through two grants and continual encouragement and advice;
   
   
4. The more than 200 staff members within the agencies that make up the Science.gov Alliance, who have served in many capacities;
   
   
5. The staff of the Office of Scientific and Technical Information here in Oak Ridge, most especially Valerie Allen and Sharon Jordan, who have coordinated our work and managed its technological backbone;
   
   
6. The staff of the Commerce Department's National Technical Information Service, who manage the browsetree content of science.gov Web sites;
   
   
7. The staff of the U.S. Geological Survey who manage the Web site search engine;
   
   
8. Mr. Abe Lederman, who developed the "deep Web" search engine which searches across the full content of the 30 databases in science.gov; and finally,
   
   
9. Bonnie Carroll, Gail Hodge, Susanne Dupes, and Kathryn Johnson of Information International Associates here in Oak Ridge, who have provided the central secretariat support that has made science.gov an operational reality.

I hope that we shall see science.gov continue to grow and prosper so that twenty years from now, people encountering science.gov way will recognize the name and applaud it.

Thank you so much for allowing me to participate in this wonderful occasion.