Global science gateway formed

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The US Department of Energy (DOE) and the British Library have teamed up to develop a global science gateway. The gateway is intended to make the science information resources of many nations accessible via a single internet portal.

Called ‘Science.world,’ the planned resource would be available for use by scientists in all nations and by anyone interested in science. The approach will take advantage of existing technology to search vast collections of science information distributed across the globe. This is expected to enable access to smaller, less well-known sources of valuable science.

The new portal will follow the model of Science.gov, the US interagency science portal that links to content published by each participating agency. ‘Science.world’ will similarly link to scientific resources published by each participating nation. Other countries have been invited to participate in this international effort.

‘It is time to make the science offerings of all nations searchable in one global gateway. Our goal is to speed up the sharing of knowledge on a global scale. As a result, we believe that science itself will speed up,’ commented Raymond Orbach, the DOE’s under secretary for science.

The objectives of the ‘Science.world’ initiative are to: search dispersed, electronic collections in various science disciplines; provide direct, seamless and free searching of open-source collections and portals; build upon existing and already successful national models for searching; complement existing information collections and systems; and raise the visibility and usage of individual sources of quality science information.