DOE Inks Agreement On Science Website

The Department of Energy and representatives from 38 countries solidified their commitment to WorldWideScience.org at the International Council for Scientific & Technical Information 2008 Public Conference in Seoul, South Korea, on June 12. They signed an agreement establishing a permanent governance structure for the multilateral effort supporting WorldWideScience.org, a single access point for world scientific information and expertise. The portal allows access to more than 200 million pages of science and technology information that generally are inaccessible through other search engines. Currently, WorldWideScience.org is able to search 32 national scientific databases and portals from 44 countries. This is up from the 12 scientific databases from 10 countries that were available just a year ago. "Unleashing global scientific discovery, through WorldWideScience.org, will accelerate scientific progress," said Under Secretary Raymond L. Orbach, head of DOE's Office of Science. WorldWideScience.org began in January 2007 as a partnership between Orbach and Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, to develop a global science gateway to accelerate scientific discovery.