Cathey Daniels, (865) 576-9539
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
WorldWideScience.org: China's Participation
Expands Access to Global Science
Ottawa, Canada Government officials today formalized the addition of the People's Republic of China as the most recent member of the WorldWideScience Alliance. The signing ceremony was held in Ottawa, Canada. The addition of the Chinese database, from the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, means that WorldWideScience.org, the global science gateway, now searches science and technology research and development results from 80 percent of the world's population. The multilateral WorldWideScience Alliance was established in June 2008 to govern this rapidly growing online gateway to international scientific research information.
WorldWideScience.org uses federated search engine technology to provide a single point of Internet search and retrieval for vast quantities of geographically-dispersed science and technology information - information which is generally not accessible to conventional search engines. The growth of WorldWideScience.org, since its prototype debut in 2007 has been dramatic, rapidly evolving from 10 countries to 56 countries and 375 million pages of science information today. In the Ottawa ceremony, Chinese and WorldWideScience.org officials signed a statement, saying, "We commit ourselves to a long-term vision for enabling and accelerating scientific discovery through unique and innovative use of federated searching and other technologies." The ceremony was held in conjunction with the 2009 conference of the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), which serves as a primary sponsor of the WorldWideScience Alliance.
WorldWideScience.org was conceived and developed by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), which is within the Office of Science. The addition of China and this key Chinese scientific database marks a major milestone in the progress of WorldWideScience toward becoming a truly global knowledge resource for accelerating scientific breakthroughs.
Taking part in the signing ceremony were Wang Rongfang, Chinese Embassy in Canada, and WorldWideScience Alliance Executive Board Members Richard Boulderstone (Chair), The British Library; Pam Bjornson (Vice Chair), Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information; Walt Warnick (Operating Agent), OSTI; and Herbert Gruttemeier (ICSTI President), French National Institute of Scientific and Technical Information.