Global Science Gateway opens

An online global gateway to science information from 15 national portals has now been opened.

WorldWideScience.org has been established by the US Department of Energy (DOE), the British Library and eight other participating countries. It uses federated search technology to give citizens, researchers and anyone interested in science the capability to search science portals that are not easily accessible through popular search technology such as that deployed by Google, Yahoo! and many other commercial search engines.

'Scientific research results are archived globally in a plethora of sources, many unknown and unreachable through usual search engines,' explained Raymond Orbach, DOE under secretary for science. 'This international partnership will open up this vast reservoir of knowledge in a rapid and convenient manner, something that will add great value to our existing knowledge.'

As WorldWideScience.org grows, it will use existing technology to search vast collections of science information distributed across the globe, enabling much-needed access to smaller, less well-known sources of science.

The US contribution to WorldWideScience.org is Science.gov, the US government’s one-stop searchable portal to major science databases of federal science agencies. In addition to the US and the UK, the inaugural WorldWideScience.org portal provides access to research information in English from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. Eventually, WorldWideScience.org should give access to the research results of any nation in any language.