OSTI Is Re-Focusing and Re-Balancing Its Operations – And Refreshing Its Home Page – to Advance Public Accessby Dr. Jeffrey Salmon 03 Mar, 2014 in Products and Content
Let’s call it creative destruction, borrowing from a popular term in economics. The idea is that the very essence of capitalism is the destruction of old structures and the building of new ones that inevitably face the same pressures as the structures they replaced.  It’s the reason the buggy whip industry fell on hard times. The information management business of the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is in constant flux too, where the next big thing can soon become the next big flop. OSTI cannot be immune to these disruptive forces, nor would we wish it to be. Here, I would like to focus on just one of many disruptive forces in the information management and information technology worlds compelling OSTI to change, the push for greater public access to federally-funded R&D results. Frankly, it’s a disruptive force we welcome. Increasingly the legislative and executive branches of government have emphasized public access to federally-funded scholarly publications (i.e., journal articles and accepted manuscripts) and digital datasets. OSTI will lead the implementation of public access to scholarly publications for DOE, just as the organization has offered public access to other forms of scientific and technical information (STI) emanating from DOE and its predecessor agencies for the past 67 years. To this end, OSTI is re-focusing and re-balancing its resources, operations, and priorities. For OSTI, this means looking first and foremost at the STI produced by DOE and serving DOE R&D interests. OSTI is working to be as comprehensive as possible in its processes to collect, preserve/curate, and disseminate all forms of STI from DOE. This means that the DOE Scientific and Technical Information Program, or STIP, is of paramount importance. STIP is a robust and effective collaboration across the DOE... Related Topics: .EDUconnections, Adopt-A-Doc, DOE Green Energy, DOE STI, journal literature, National Library of Energy (NLE) - Beta, osti, OSTI Homepage, Science Accelerator, Science Conference Proceedings, ScienceLab, SciTech Connect
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Do You Have a Favorite Science Teacher? Adopt-A-Doc in Their Honorby Debbie Nuchols 30 Aug, 2012 in Products and Content
What is Adopt-A-Doc? Adopt-A-Doc is another way OSTI is working to increase the availability of important research. You can be a part of accelerating scientific discovery and help make important research available online by sponsoring the digitization of any adoptable U.S Department of Energy (DOE) technical report.  Your report will be made full-text searchable by DOE search engines like Science Accelerator.gov and Science.gov; as well as be exposed to general purpose search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The Adopt-A-Doc database currently has over 200,000 technical reports that have not been digitized and are available for adoption. You may find a technical report that you want to share with others or you think worthy of making broadly available on the web to support the advancement of science. The Adopt-A-Doc service is available for a nominal fee and allows you to request recognition via a certificate of appreciation indicating that the electronic technical report was made possible by your contribution. The certificate will appear as the first page of the document for the indefinite future. You may also request an acknowledgment in honor or in memory of a recipient. For more information, please visit www.osti.gov/adoptadoc, or contact Debbie Nuchols at nucholsd@osti.gov or (865) 576-5699. Related Topics: Adopt-A-Doc, appreciation, certificate, digitization, electronic documents, honor, memory, scientific information Read more... |
You Can Be a Part of Accelerating Scientific Discovery!by Susan Tackett 13 Aug, 2009 in Products and Content Did you know that you can help make important research available online by adopting a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) technical report?  There are more than 300,000 DOE technical reports in need of digitization. In fact, most DOE technical reports from the 1940s to 1991 are still only available in hard copy or microfiche. This means that important research is not electronically accessible by researchers and the public. You may find a technical report that you want to share with others or you think worthy of making indefinitely available on the web to support the advancement of science. When you search for important science information in your area of interest, you can choose to sponsor the digitization of any adoptable technical report. The cost is $85 (approximately the same cost as ordering a hard copy). You can request recognition via a sponsor "certificate" indicating that the technical report was made electronically available through your contribution. The certificate will appear as the first page of the document. Or, you may request an acknowledgment in honor of . . . or in memory of . . . , etc. to appear as the first page of the document. However, if you prefer to be an anonymous sponsor, no recognition will be placed in the report. ...Related Topics: Adopt-A-Doc, digitization, doe, technical reports Read more... |
ROI of 10,000,000% -- Would You Invest?by Brian Hitson 22 Jul, 2009 in Products and Content Even the most outrageous Ponzi scheme couldn't promise a return of 10 million percent, but that's the return to be realized by opening the Department of Energy's historic R&D findings to the web. Yes, you have to accept certain assumptions, but it's not a major leap. Let's review the math. Since the early 1940s (even before the Atomic Energy Commission -- a DOE predecessor), the U.S. government has been investing billions of dollars in energy-related and basic scientific research. Up until the late 1990s, most of the results from this work were recorded in papers (literally). The vast majority of these papers are under the watchful eye of DOE's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI). Since 2000, DOE's R&D reports have been generated entirely electronically; so, all of these are available on OSTI's Information Bridge web product. And, through a combination of its own efforts and collaborations with key partners such as the IAEA's International Nuclear Information System (INIS), OSTI has been able to digitize technical reports dating back to the early 1990s -- also available through Information Bridge. In addition to these efforts, OSTI is also trying other innovative approaches, such as Adopt-A-Doc, where individuals or organizations can sponsor the digitization of individual reports or small subset collections. But that leaves essentially... Related Topics: Adopt-A-Doc, digitization, Information Bridge (IB)
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It's been a big summer for sharing science info--and it's still only June!by Cathey Daniels 30 Jun, 2009 in Products and Content
Did you know:
 And did you know that now you can more easily let us know what you think about our... Related Topics: Adopt-A-Doc, OSTI Youtube Channel, Science Accelerator, Science.gov, SciTech Connect, youtube Read more... |
What's in the OSTI Legacy Collection?by Tim Byrne 20 Mar, 2009 in Products and Content The DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information legacy collection contains an estimated one million technical reports representing six decades of energy research that is, for the most part, unavailable in electronic format. On average, OSTI receives close to two hundred requests each month to digitize specific reports, with the vast majority of the requests coming from DOE employees and contractors. The legacy collection represents an enormous investment in research and development from the Atomic Energy Commission, Energy Research and Development Administration and Department of Energy. With the growing tendency of many researchers to rely solely on research information available electronically, this incredibly valuable resource collection is often ignored. By not having electronic access to previous research, scientific advancement may be diminished and funds wasted duplicating what has already been done.  OSTI has recently implemented the Adopt-a-Doc program that allows the general public to pay for the digitization of a document of their choosing. Documents in need of digitization can be identified by searching the Energy Citations Database and clicking on the Materials available for digitization box on the Fielded Search window. This is proving to be a popular service. Unfortunately, with the level of digitization that OSTI can currently handle, it will take a very long time to digitize the entire legacy collection.  The birth of the OSTI legacy collection really began with the declassification and distribution of reports from the Manhattan Project. Following the end of World War II, our nation was inquisitive and interested in the government's hitherto top-secret program on... Related Topics: Adopt-A-Doc, AEC, digitization, doe, Energy Citations Database (ECD), erda, legacy collection, Nobel Prize, osti Read more... |
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