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British Library and US Department of Energy to collaborate on global science gateway

January 25 2007

THE BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON -- Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Under Secretary for Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has signed an agreement with Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, to collaborate on the development of a global science gateway. The gateway would eventually make 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 capitalise on existing technology to search vast collections of science information distributed across the globe, enabling much-needed access to smaller, less well-known sources of highly valuable science. Following the model of Science.gov, the U.S. interagency science portal that relies on content published by each participating agency, 'Science.world' will rely on scientific resources published by each participating nation. Other countries have been invited to participate in this international effort.

Recognising the impact of international research efforts, Dr. Orbach stated, "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."

Lynne Brindley said, "We are delighted to be embarking on what we expect to be a very fruitful collaboration with the DOE to develop the Science.world resource. The British Library has a long history of delivering online information resources through international partnerships - the most recent of which being the UK PubMed Central database, which has generated a huge amount of interest since it was launched on January 9."

Increasingly science projects are international in scope, with researchers across the globe collaborating on projects as diverse as energy, linear colliders, genomes and the environment. At the same time, the US and UK have recognised the importance of providing their citizens with one-stop electronic access to increasing volumes of science information, with a growing sense of the need for reciprocity and sharing of science knowledge across national boundaries.

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.

The US Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) (www.osti.gov) will work with the British Library (www.bl.uk) and international counterparts to develop a prototype of "Science.world" in 2007.

For further information please contact: Ben Sanderson at the British Library Press Office (telephone 01937 546126, email: ben.sanderson@bl.uk) or Lawrence Christensen (telephone 020 7412 7114, email: lawrence.christensen@bl.uk)

Notes for editors

  1. The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The British Library's collections include 150 million items from every era of written human history beginning with Chinese oracle bones dating from 300 BC, right up to the latest e-journals. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk
  2. The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) has extensive experience in offering searching of distributed, deep web databases, having played a central role in the development of Science.gov (www.science.gov), the U.S. government's one-stop searchable portal to major science databases of federal science agencies. Through Science.gov and other OSTI web products, scientists and citizens access U.S. R&D results over 50 million times per year.
  3. Based on a model currently used by the US National Institute of Health, UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) will provide free access to a permanent online archive of peer-reviewed research papers in the medical and life sciences. In July 2006 a nine-strong group of UK research funders, led by the Wellcome Trust, awarded the contract to develop UKPMC to a partnership between the British Library, The University of Manchester and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). The service was launched on January 9, 2007. UK PubMed Central can be accessed at: www.ukpmc.ac.uk.