SLA Government Information Division

CRS Report on Fossil Fuel Basics

A new report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) explains the terminology, measurements, and status of U.S. fossil fuel resources. The 28 October 2009 report, U.S. Fossil Fuel Resources: Terminology, Reporting, and Summary [PDF], supplies essential background information for those of us who do not work with energy information full-time. (Since CRS does not provide reports directly to the public, the report comes to us courtesy of the FAS Project on Government Secrecy.)

From the report's introduction:

This report describes the characteristics of fossil fuels that make it necessary to use precise terminology, summarizes the major terms and their meanings, and provides a brief summary of U.S. endowment of fossil fuels and the relationship between the U.S. fossil fuel energy endowment and those of other nations.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) also provides introductory material on its feature website Energy Explained. The site covers the basics for renewable resources, nuclear energy, and secondary resources (electricity, hydrogen) as well as fossil fuels.

New SciTechBiz Blog from Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has a new blog, Inside Adams, sponsored by the Library's Science, Technology, and Business Division (ST&B). The blog name derives from the Library's John Adams Building, home to ST&B, 13 acres of shelf space, and more. Two digital reference specialists are doing the blogging.

From the blog's inaugural post:

We look forward to this journey with you as we discover and highlight materials from our collections, share our favorite finds, and spotlight exciting events that take place here at the Library. Over the next few posts we will explore how ST&B came to be and share with you some history about the John Adams Building, along with its art and architecture.

DOE Docs Digitized via IAEA Partnership

A recent press release from the Energy Department's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) explains how OSTI's partnership with the IAEA and its INIS database advances the digitization of legacy documents on the peaceful applications of nuclear technology. From the 27 October 2009 release:

As part of its knowledge preservation mandate, the IAEA, through the International Nuclear Information System (INIS), is digitizing historic nuclear energy research documents dating from 1970 through the early 1990s. These documents have been provided by member states over the years, including more than 180,000 documents from the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI). OSTI, within the Office of Science, is the U.S. representative to INIS and has had its own digitization focus in recent years. ...

Prior to the electronic era, where most documents are "born digital," OSTI provided research results in microfiche form to INIS and various depository libraries throughout the U.S. While OSTI and the DOE community have digitized a portion of these older reports in recent years, INIS has made major inroads in digitizing a significant volume. Reflecting the spirit of partnership, INIS provides electronic copies to the originating country for its own use in addition to providing access through its database at the IAEA in Vienna. Thus, the U.S. documents are being provided to OSTI for accessibility through the OSTI databases and Science.gov.

INIS announced free, unrestricted Web access to the INIS database on 3 April 2009.

Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data

The National Academy of Sciences tackled the subject of research data in the digital age in a report available on their website at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12615. Actually, what’s available is a pre-publication version, and it was issued in July 2009. But I just learned about it and am sharing that information with you!

The report offers three principles and a number of related recommendations.The principles:

• Ensuring the integrity of research data is essential for advancing scientific, engineering, and medical knowledge and for maintaining public trust in the research enterprise. Although other stakeholders in the research enterprise have important roles to play, researchers themselves are ultimately responsible for ensuring the integrity of research data.
• Data Access and Sharing Principle: Research data, methods, and other information integral to publicly reported results should be publicly accessible.
• Data Stewardship Principle: Research data should be retained to serve future uses. Data that may have long-term value should be documented, referenced, and indexed so that others can find and use them accurately and appropriately.

The report sees the stewardship of research data as a critical long-term task for the research community. The role of libraries is not specifically addressed, although there are scattered references to libraries and to the 2009 Association of Research Libraries report “The Research Library’s Role in Digital Repository Services”, http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/repository-services-report.pdf.

What do you think the role of libraries generally, and yours specifically, could and should be?

--by Nora K. Stoecker

Do you know Science Nation?

Are you familiar with Science Nation, the National Science Foundation's online magazine?  Each week,in a very accessible "mashup" of video and text , Science Nation explores one story focusing on a recent scientific breakthrough.  Enhancing each story is a sidebar containing links to related multimedia and other related research.

This week's story is titled Tongue Driver, about the development of a headset that could allow quadriplegics to steer wheelchairs with their tongues.  Earlier stories have been about such topics as renewable enegy in China, green gasoline, a neon cancer detector, and the use of virtual reality in influencing decision-making, among many others.

What I like best (in addition to the effective presentation) is the option to receive updates by e-mail, which means we don't have to remember to look each week for the new topic, we'll be reminded.  Check it out!

WorldWideScience.org - Results Clustering & Social Networking

WorldWideScience.org has introduced a results clustering feature to help users narrow down search results.  I don't know if their "summary of all results" option counts as a results clustering feature - but I like it because it shows how many results came from which sources.

In addition, the site also offers a tool for sharing results on social networking sites.  Select "bookmark this search" to get started.  I shared an "energy security" search set with Twitter, just to see how it worked.  I wonder how long the link will stay active?  You can read the tweet at twitter.com/nksinfo

For those who aren't familiar with it, WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway connecting users to national and international scientific databases and portals.  It offers over 375 million pages of content from over 50 countries.  A wealth of information!

NIST issues call for white papers on critical national needs

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued a call for white papers to help define potential new funding competitions under the NIST Technology Innovation Program (TIP).

TIP promotes innovation by providing cost-shared funding for high-risk, high-reward research projects by small or medium-sized businesses or by joint ventures that might also include universities, nonprofit research organizations, and national laboratories.

It's seeking white papers from interested parties in industry, academia, federal, state, and local governments, and professional organizations and societies on any area of critical national need, but is especially interested in the following:  civil infrastructure; complex networks and complex systems; energy; ensuring future water supply; healthcare; manufacturing; nanomaterials/nanotechnology; sustainability.

White papers will be accepted at any time from November 9, 2009 through September 30, 2010, with interim deadlines of Nov. 9, Feb. 15, May 10, and July 12.  More information is available from the   Sept. 8, 2009 NIST Tech Beat or from the Sept. 4, 2009 Federal Register.

ARPA-E seeks input for future funding opportunities

ARPA-E, the US Dept. of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy, has issued a formal Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public input on potential programmatic energy technology areas and opportunities in its mission space. The deadline is September 25th; the RFI can be found here.

ARPA-E was created in 2007, generally speaking to support "transformational" applied research to overcome long-term and high-risk technological barriers in the development of energy technologies. ARPA-E solicits, selects, and funds relevant research by institutions of higher education, companies, research foundations, trade and industry research collaborations, or consortia, which may include federally-funded research and development centers.

If your organization engages in this type of work, spread the word about the RFI.  --nks

USPTO Solicits Feedback on Beta Website

[DGI member Nora Stroecker contributes this post for the SLA/DGI blog. Nora will be posting science and technology government info news to the blog. Future posts from Nora will be under her own name. Thanks Nora!]

Last week the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced the beta test release of its new web site. The stated goals are to improve the look and feel, and to “enhance the user experience” with improved navigation.

The USPTO is soliciting constructive feedback on the new site. Why not take a few minutes to compare the proposed new site* (http://beta.uspto.gov/) with the current site (http://www.uspto.gov/)?
*note: the beta site may not be completely current; content is apparently still being migrated.

Speaking of US patents – yesterday was Tuesday, and that’s when new patents are issued and uploaded to the USPTO database. To view the full list, visit the patent search page; do a simple search on issue date with today’s date (9/8/2009) and skim through as many of the 3,730 newly issued patents as you care to. #3730 didn’t sound all that exciting to me (“Glove portion”) but #3701 caught my eye (“educational musical toothbrush”).

And no, I didn’t browse all 3,730.  But I did randomly jump to a few different screens just for fun.

--Nora Stoecker

Topical Resources, Twitters from NLM

The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) has created several timely resources for citizens and those who help citizens find information:

• A new page highlights NLM's disaster info resources for hurricanes and wildfires.
• A new page on the topic of electronic health records features a prepared MEDLINE/PubMed search and a set of links to related resources from government and associations.
• NLM has just introduced Rapid Research Notes, "an archival service to support research shared through new venues for rapid communication enabled by the internet." (About)
• MedLinePlus is now on Twitter at twitter.com/medlineplus4you.
• NLM's Specialized Information Service has a twitter feed at twitter.com/NLM_SIS. A recent tweet says "NLM provides links to authoritative #coal ash information resources http://bit.ly/EUP2n".

To keep up with NLM, try one of their RSS feeds for news, podcasts, and webcasts.