Sharon M. JordanAssistant Director for Program Integration

U.S. DOE Office of Scientific & Technical Information

Vantage Point:

Government R&D Results Distributor to Accelerate Science Discovery

Global Data Access

DOE Data Access

Interagency Data Access

Transparency

Collaboration

Participation

OSTI MissionTo advance science and sustain

technological creativity by making R&D findings available and useful to

Department of Energy (DOE) researchers and the public

• Making government-sponsored R&D information available via single-query aggregated portals

• Responding to practices of searchers.*

Librarians, researchers and the public Librarians, researchers and the public can access a science page count can access a science page count

comparable to, but not duplicative of, comparable to, but not duplicative of, the entire science content of Googlethe entire science content of GoogleTMTM

*In 2002 OCLC “Perceptions of Library and Information Resources,” 84% of public began search using search engines; only 1% began with online databases.

Integrates 10 key DOE databases that cover a range of R&D results (reports, patents, citations, project summaries, eprints, etc.)

Integrates science information databases and portals from >60 nations

Drills down to selected databases and websites in parallel, then presents ranked search results

Free Aggregator of Multiple Government R&D-related Databases

Integrates databases and websites of 14 U.S. science agencies

• less than 1% overlap with Google • approximately 3.2% overlap with Google Scholar

Science.gov results are uniquely different from Google and Google Scholar results 95.8% of the time

Integrates simple search interface with database functionality & searches in real time:

• over 40 databases of 14 U.S. science agencies• 200 million pages of science information• Thousands of authoritative scientific websites within .gov domain/sponsorship

• Clusters results• EurekAlert! Science

News• Wikipedia links• Download

capabilities• Relevancy ranked

results• Alerts service• Search within a

search• Email search results• Spell check• Results sorting• User-friendly

navigation, preference options

Key FeaturesIntegrated Search Portal: Single Query of

Science.gov Databases and Websites

Science.gov helps users identify databases for more advanced searching as needed

• Searches 61 science databases and portals sponsored by governments and national institutions in 61 countries

• Covers scientific literature from over three-fourths of the world’s population

• Includes a vast quantity of science (over 400 million pages), providing significant journal coverage as well as a majority of grey literature.

• Current research in multi-lingual translation technologies will enable non-English databases to be searched from the WWS interface

• Proving WWS “deep web” value, recent analysis shows only 3.5% overlap with Google and Google Scholar

Real Time Search?

Ads?Relevancy Ranked?

All Govt. Science?

Known Sources?

Scholarly Info?

Conclusion: They are complementary and suitable for certain

audiences/tasks/circumstances

Science.gov and WWS Discovery Tools vs. Discipline-Oriented Databases

Science.gov Govt Portal Search

Discipline-Oriented Databases

• Generally have more human input, preparation of data prior to posting

• Have more administrative control (not reliant on underlying databases)

• Presentation of information uses standard fields, standard look and feel, standard query search strings often makes for more comfortable user experience (especially at first)

• Depth of information can be achieved due to discipline-specific nature

• One-stop access to multiple databases targeted for inclusion

• Integrates and organizes huge amount of information

• Provides well-rounded picture of topic to quickly scan environment

• Offers user the ability to drill down to individual database(s)

• Simple searching, yet powerful results: one search box or advanced search specifying fields or databases

• Modules enhance user experience with quantity of information, e.g., clustering, filtering, sorting, menu selections