Public Access to US Government Scientific Information: The Science.gov Approach Presented by Thomas Lahr, US Geological Survey and Co-chair, Science.gov Alliance Special Libraries Association Baltimore, MD June 13, 2006

Why Science.gov? There is a need to find U.S. government scientific and technical information quickly and easily, but information is dispersed across thousands of Web sites (“Surface Web”) and databases (“Deep Web”).

What is Science.gov? “FirstGov for Science” an e-gov initiative A Web portal that provides unified and simplified access to selected U.S. government Web sites and databases that contain scientific and technical information A voluntary large scale collaboration among U.S. government agencies

How Has Science.gov Evolved? Science.gov Alliance formed in scientific and technical information organizations from 10 major science agencies V. 1.0 of launched in December 2002www.science.gov V. 2.0 launched in May 2004 “Alerts” service launched in February 2005 V. 3.0 launched in December 2005 Science.gov Alliance now includes 16 organizations from 11 agencies

Particpating Agencies Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Interior Environmental Protection Agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Science Foundation US Government Printing Office National Archives and Records Administration

Science.gov Creation Challenges Broad scope of Federal science and technology research and development missions Wide-ranging interests of potential audiences Information organization (taxonomy) issues given the broad scope and audiences Blending information resources from different agencies into cohesive functionality and page design Politics, human resources, funding, sustainability

What Does Science.gov Do? Searches selected Web sites (“Surface Web”) and Databases (“Deep Web”) from one search box, using simple to fairly advanced searching techniques Combines results from all sources searched, ranks and displays them by relevance Sends “alerts” for topics of interest every Monday or as new information is added Provides browsing of selected Web sites Links to special collections and other information Featured search and sites highlight hot topics

Continuing Challenges More usage – science.gov usage is growing, especially as more “alerts” are established, but it has plenty of room for growth Increase information, both deep web and databases Add US Government partners Coordination with other worldwide science portals

What’s Next for Science.gov? Version 4.0, under development, will add searching of decentralized full text repositories to the existing searching of Web sites and databases Science.gov Alliance members will continue to add new content Collaboration with other national science portals will be evaluated and modified to meet customer needswww.science.gov The Science.gov Alliance will begin to plan the future of beyond version 4.0www.science.gov

Thomas Lahr USGS/Biological Informatics Program Sunrise Valley Drive / MS 302 Reston, VA Telephone: Eleanor Frierson National Agricultural Library (NAL) Baltimore Avenue, Room 200 Beltsville, MD Telephone: Gail Hodge CENDI Secretariat - IIa 312 Walnut Place Havertown, PA USA Telephone: 610/ Science.gov Co-Chairs Further information at or contact: