WorldWideScience

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WorldWideScience is a global science gateway designed to accelerate scientific discovery and progress by accelerating the sharing of scientific knowledge. Through a multilateral partnership, WorldWideScience enables anyone with internet access to launch a single-query search of 29 national scientific databases and portals in 42 countries, covering all of the world’s inhabited continents and over 40% of the world’s population. From a user’s perspective, WorldWideScience makes the databases act as if they were a unified whole.

WorldWideScience implements federated searching to provide its coverage of global science and research results. Federated searching technology allows the information patron to search multiple data sources with a single query in real time. It provides simultaneous access to deep web scientific databases, which are typically not searchable by commercial search engines.

1 History
2 Current Progress
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

The concept for global gateway to national science information sources was first described by Dr. Walter Warnick at the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) annual meeting in Washington, DC, in 2006. The concept was formalized in January 2007 when the British Library and the United States Department of Energy signed a Statement of Intent to partner in the development of a global science gateway. Later officially named “"WorldWideScience" the gateway was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information. The system was unveiled to ICSTI members and the public at the June 2007 ICSTI meeting in Nancy, France.

[edit] Current Progress

Since its release in June 2007, WorldWideScience has more than doubled both the number of data sources searched, along with the number of countries participating as information providers. The default search of WorldWideScience includes a search of the US contribution, Science.gov, which tends to return scholarly information as opposed to lay information. A transition from bilateral management to a multilateral governance structure, called the WorldWideScience Alliance, is also underway. A formal launch of the Alliance will take place at the June 2008 ICSTI meeting in Seoul, Korea.