Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Reporting from ALA GODORT Annual 2008 in Anaheim

Highlights from the various GODORT meetings and programs at ALA Anaheim, June 26-July 2, 2008:

Submission I: Saturday, June 28: GODORT Update was held at the Marriott Hotel next to the Convention Center.

Justin Otto, FDTF Coordinator, made brief opening remarks and then introduced the Outgoing GODORT Chair, Bill Sleeman; the SLDTF Coordinator, Crenetha S. Brunson; and IDTF Coordinator, Marcy Allen.

The first presentation followed--an update of OSTI online services by Tim Byrne, Technical Reports Specialist, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information. Of the many resources mentioned by Tim, the following should be of value to all librarians needing quick and easy access to government sponsored scientific and technical research projects, reports, and other related documents:
www.ScienceAccelerator.gov

This aggregator/gateway site provides access to 10 individual databases, such as "Energy Files: Energy Science and Technology Virtual Library"; "E-Print Network," a scientific and engineering peer-to-peer repository for ongoing (pre-publication) research in the basic and applied sciences; and "DOEpatents," a "database of patent information resulting from research sponsored by DOE and its predecessor agencies"--from the 1940s to current. Search capabilities include a federated search over all databases or specific searches in selected databases (for more information on federated searching in this site and in other government science and technology sites, see: http://www.osti.gov/fedsearch)
Another site discussed by Tim was WorldWideScience.org: The Global Science Gateway. It is a "federation of national science portals where research results are made available by participating nations" and is modeled after Science.gov, hosted by OSTI. Go to www.worldwidescience.org and see for yourself how amazing this resource is (love that interactive map!).

One of the potentially most exciting aspects of this presentation was the announcement that OSTI is offering downloadable MARC records of the information located in the "Information Bridge" database (one of the 10 databases available via "ScienceAcelerator). For more information, contact MARCrecords@osti.gov.

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