Many thanks to Karen Blakeman for her recent post on Ten Science Search Engines:

That post has led me to roam around the Web catching up and educating myself on what has been happening in science search in the past several months. Well, first of all Karen pointed out that she was referring to the post on the subject featured on the Spineless? Blog of the British institution, Heriot-Watt University. Now, anyone who is considering setting up a library blog or indeed any blog in the information sciences might want to take a look at that one. It is handsome, interesting, informative and well-organized. Indeed, I am going to shamelessly crib from that single post for several days running.

For instance, one of the search engines listed is Scitopia.org which has been around for a while but which I have not really explored. And I noticed that it is says “Powered by DeepWeb” so I popped over to the site of that firm, Deep Web Technologies which led to this useful post Introducing Science.gov 5.0.

Ironically, when I clicked on the link there that reads, “Science.gov 5.0 is now available!” I got the error message, “Firefox can’t find the server at www.science-dot-gov.” And Internet Explorer says more or less the same thing, “Sorry, we couldn’t find http://www.science-dot-gov/index.html.” I imagine that Science.gov Product Manager Valerie Allen is working on that little glitch, as I have just left on her post a note about it.

Everybody interested in science search should read Ms. Allen’s post, as she discusses several interesting changes to Science.gov, some of which will set some teeth on edge, especially among those who remain leery of Wikipedia’s increasing presence in scholarship and consider its growing influence as a distressing sign of dumbing down, decline of standards and the fall of civilization generally. RSS is making its presence felt in Science.gov 5.0, as is the growth in the use the of online citation tools.

And boy is mastery of those a huge part of librarianship these days, as I am learning in my studies in the FastTrack MLIS program at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Sciences–and for those of you out there in library jobs and considering getting your master’s in library science, applications for admission to the FastTrack MLIS program (Summer 2009 Term) are due by February 16, 2009: An MLIS is not a bad thing for those fascinated by search to have—many of the leading commentators on search are former librarians or still librarians or work in libraries (e.g., Gary Price, Greg Notess, Mary Ellen Bates, David Rothman (of http://davidrothman.net).

But getting back to what Ms. Allen says. She says:

“…If you’re a frequent user of Science.gov, you may have had a hand in the recent enhancements. Many of the new Science.gov 5.0 technical features are in response to past suggestions from Science.gov users. Topic “clustering” is available on the Science.gov results so you can drill down into subtopics to focus your research. Presented alongside the Science.gov results is auxiliary information from the AAAS EurekAlert! Science News and from Wikipedia. Also new with this version is the ability to download search results into your citation management software – a specific request from the library community. You will also notice a new Alerts interface which allows you to set up an ATOM or RSS feed of your Alerts.”

Finding Ms. Allen’s posting on this useful reading, I decided to check out more recent entries on the OTSI (Office of Scientific & Technical Information) blog. There has been some excitement about the new global science gateway WorldWideScience.org and this post is important reading for those who care about medicine and science: China Joins the WorldWideScience Alliance: Why This is Important.

When I was growing up in Corvallis, Oregon my family hosted many of the first graduate students allowed by the People’s Republic of China to study at Oregon State University and I taught English in China for a year in the 1990s and have always been impressed by the brilliance of Chinese scientists and the struggles they have overcome such as the simple lack of books and basic lab and computer resources. It is so heartening that at long last the efforts of scientists like these and elsewhere in the developing world will now be rendered findable and open to Western scientists and that the latter are becoming more open to citing papers from foreign institutions. Noble and important work Brian Hitson, OSTI Associate Director for Administration & Information Services! Those who suffer from devastating illnesses and those of us who love such people thank you and wish you well in your work.

I then surfed back to the Web Site of Deep Web Technologies and decided to click on some of their press releases, which led to me to this one:

I tried the tool mentioned because I was curious to see what results on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis would come up in this, the DOD’s Defense Technical Information Center’s new online research portal, given that veterans appear to have a higher incidence of ALS than the general population. I got an interesting result from the National Research Council Canada Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information and it is nice to see results from WorldWideScience.org already appearing so helpfully in results in various search engines. This portal might be of interest to veterans and their family members who wish to investigate the possibility that health problems might be connected to military service. It is certainly something those in the defense industry will employ.

Deep Web Technologies is doing some amazing things for its many clients in science and business search. Check out its site. It’s a comer. No, scratch that—it is a well established leader in search technology.

These are just some of the things I have been exploring as a result of Ms. Blakeman’s edifying post.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 11:24 am and is filed under Health, Verticals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.