Science.Gov is the easiest and the best way for beginners to locate science information created by federal agencies. An alerting service [new content] is also available. Science websites are arranged by topic or you may use the search box. Special collections include regulations, R& D summaries, internships & fellowships, and Grants.gov. Topical research is often found under "Featured Web Sites." This database searches more than 30 databases and about 2,000 websites. Seventeen organizations, including twelve federal science agencies have partnered to create Science.Gov.
Scientific data are "facts, observations, or experiences on which an argument, theory, or test is based." Data can be categorized by the method of collection and by stage. For example, data may be:
Congress is often willing to fund research, especially when done in state, but rarely funds the publishing, printing, and distribution of that research. Congressional policies encourage STM agencies to do their own publishing, printing, and dissemination rather than work through GPO. GPO had opportunities to publish STM material in the 1940s, but declined because of workload.
Congress has encouraged STM agencies to partner with the for-profit sector and use government information as a revenue source. Congress continues to assume that the for-profit sector will add value and widely distribute information to those interested. The assumption that government information is of value only when users pay for it seems to have received little critical thought. When an agency sells information, the money earned typically goes to the Treasury and NOT back to the agency (disincentive to publish).
The executive branch has substantially reduced funding for library and information activities. A current proposal will essentially eliminate the EPA libraries. The USGS libraries are dramatically underfunded and have lost many career library staff, including professionals. USGS is considering outsourcing their libraries and collections.
As mentioned earlier in discussing access to government information, the terrorist threat has resulted in withdrawal of a notable amount of information. For example the Department of Defense's primary map producer, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency proposed in late 2005 to withdraw all of its aeronautical products from public access. This would include thousands of maps and charts as well as digital geospatial data. Among their arguments is that this content is of interest only to DOD end users.
In the old days, scientific, technical and medical (STM) resources were a small portion of depository items and, with the exception of agriculture, were of little interest to most depository libraries. Those interested in federal government STM material had a single provider (NTIS) and a single index to provide access to what was available. A contemporary version of this is SciTechResources.gov intended to provide scientists and researchers with each access to federal government ST sources. A useful portal, but likely to recede in importance with the growth of science.gov.
The web has created an environment in which there has been a dramatic, continuing increase in the amount of STM information freely available, including many images as well as other visual and audio material. STM information is still available from NTIS {but the future of NTIS is in doubt}, but many information providers will go directly to agency websites and rely on ephemeral, distant collections.
It is unusual to find one STM subject confined to one federal
agency or department. It is normal to find STM subject
information scattered with different aspects found in different
agencies. Increasingly, government research is interdisciplinary
and that makes information seeking more complex.
Federal STM information products are likely to change in the future:
NTIS sells documents and publications that were often available "free" from an agency website. Since NTIS was required to create its own funding via document sales, the Department of Commerce proposed to close NTIS and move its collections and functions to the Library of Congress. Another proposal, librarian supported, would move NTIS to the GPO and make NTIS items available via the depository library program. One study noted that the annual appropriation for NTIS was less that 1/100th of one percent of the total federal annual R&D budget. NTIS will remain in Commerce until the final determination is made.
There were modest numbers until the 1940s since reports mirror
federal research effort. Increased government defense spending
caused research to boom, especially in the 1950s and 1960s when
about 75 % of the world's R&D was done in the U.S. Today,
that figure would be closer to 30 %. In some past years, about 50
% of all R&D done in the U.S. was sponsored by the federal
government. There were perhaps 100,000 technical reports issued
each year in the 1990s. The amount varies as a function of
federal funding for research, pure and applied, with a time lag
since publication occurs at the end of the research cycle. With
the exception of defense-related research, Congress and the
President seem less interested in research funding today. The
"threat" of Chinese and Indian research may change
that.
While Federal agencies produce research in a wide variety of academic disciplines and professions, scientific, technical and medical (STM) research results in more data and analysis/conclusion products.
Subjects where Federal STM research is especially important include:
This consists of items, including technical reports, that are
published more informally, are not available in
conventional channels, and are not included in indexing and
abstracting tools. Pamphlets and flyers are a good example. Gray
literature is more often popularly associated with non-profit
advocacy organizations than government agencies. Typically,
bibliographic control is weak for gray literature. With more of
this type of literature available on the web, it may become even
less visible with the "here today, gone tomorrow"
phenomenon.
Definitions vary, but here is a good one from Ellen Calhoun: "a technical report is an account of work done on a research project which a scientist compiles to convey information to his employer or sponsor or to other scientists." Here are some common attributes:
A contractor is a firm or an individual who receives money from the government to conduct research. Contracts could be:
Why might that be a problem? Almost always, the contract
requires written reports on interim and final research results.
However, the contractor often argues that the report belongs to
it rather than to the federal government. Thus, the report is not
in the public domain and may not be shared.
Some technical reports are classified and are never
declassified. Declassification has notably slowed in the last few
years.
A large research project will generate a number of reports, including several revisions and updates. These reports fall into different categories.
Reports are classified by the issuing agency or organization.
These classifications may be numeric, alphanumeric, or a
combination. These can confuse.
The Report series codes dictionary [3rd ed., Gale Research Co., c1986.(T10.7.R4 1986) is useful for historical use. Provides access to more than 20,000 report codes with an agency for each.
The standard technical report number (STRN) is assigned by the issuing agency
Other numbers and names frequently encountered in technical reports:
Most libraries will not catalog and classify by LC or DDC. The
standard practice is to shelve reports by the agency
classification scheme so these reports are segregated in the
collection. Bibliographic access to individual items in the
series is rarely provided by the catalog. Federal government
technical reports are most likely to be found in special
libraries and information centers and research library
departmental libraries. They are shelved by issuing agency and
then by report series and number.
Until recently, about 70 percent of federal STM reports were issued in fiche. Both NTIS and GPO use diazo MF which fades when exposed to light and will eventually fade even in complete darkness. This is not a permanent format. Too, image quality varies notably from contractor to contractor. Fiche headers may not be legible and are sometimes incorrect. Retrospective collections suffer from a variety of deterioration problems.
Web publishing is much less expensive, takes less time, and can reach a larger audience. Bibliographic control (identification and access) remains a problem as does preservation. If research reports were preserved, web publishing would remove this responsibility from libraries. For example, the Center for Disease Control has its reports available via its website and this is typical for most STM agencies today.
Both represent primary information sources. Articles are peer reviewed and selected by editors while reports are published with some editing, but publication is relatively automatic. Periodical articles are much more visible to the scholarly community. Reports are much more detailed--often monographic in their completeness. Given a choice, and if likely to pass peer review and be published in a timely manner, most government researchers would likely prefer the article.
Most technical reports will not be published elsewhere. If published elsewhere, the account is likely to be much less detailed.
Note the important difference between those interested in science and technology POLICY issues and those interested in data and research. Both are found on agency websites. Policy issues may be more involved in politics and public relations initiatives. At any rate, many scientists and engineers are not interested in policy publications and many social scientists are not interested in STM data and research.
In the hard copy days, STM information was aimed at a technical/scholarly audience. Today, many STM agencies make a considerable effort to provide zippy, popular information likely to interest a lay audience, often students and teachers. While some of this may be PR fluff, much of it is well thought out and quite useful. The audience for Federal STM information has expanded well beyond the scholarly community.
Note the difference between intermediaries and end users. STM
agencies have often seemed to be more interested in intermediate
users--for profit publishers, business organizations, and
employees of other government organizations--rather than the end
user. For example, the farmer in the field would be the end user
for agricultural information. In fact, the federal agricultural
agencies have done a generally excellent job of sharing research
with those in the field via agriculture extension services. This
is NOT true of most other agencies. In many cases, STM
information never reached end users. This is changing with the
availability of the web.
The concept of "safety net" is an interesting discussion item. Should agencies create a "safety net" to insure that the less affluent and less technologically endowed end users have access to useful information? For example, NTIS seems to define users in terms of sales. This is natural since NTIS relies on sales for funding.
There is little awareness of Federal technical reports even in the STM community. Lack of visibility and confusion about which reports are available are continuing problems.
Typical STM users include:
Potential users are often concerned about the validity and completeness of the information presented, especially since technical reports are not peer-reviewed. Too, important findings may be left out (proprietary or classified). There is little information about the impact of federal government technical reports on the STM research community.
Preservation remains a continuing, difficult problem, especially since so much research is done outside the agency by academics and contractors. These do not normally have adequate preservation support or may be less interested in it.
The NTIS is not responsible for long-term preservation and its
future is doubtful. The National Archives does not normally get
all important records generated under grants and contracts. Too,
NARA does not receive as much data and as many documents as it
should. It also has considerable difficulty in handling what it
does receive.
NTIS provides access to more than 2 million bibliographic records. Digital files from 1964. About 75,000 new records are added each year (most with abstracts). Besides science and technology, other topics include administration/management, health care, agriculture and food, behavior and society, business and economics. NTIS is currently considered for closure.
Produces Science and Technology Aerospace Reports [STAR] (NAS 1.9/4:) which covers:
OSTI is located in Oak Ridge and publishes Energy Research Abstracts (E 1.17) which is now only available via the web. ERA covers:
The Energy Information Administration issues the EIA Publications Directory (E 3.27). Some data files are distributed to depositories such as Energy Facts (E 3.49)
The Armed Services Technical Information Agency (ASTIA) was transferred to the Defense Supply Agency in 1963 and became the Defense Documentation Center. The DDC was renamed the Defense Technical Information Center in 1979. As much of the information handled is sensitive, controlled, limited, or classified, DTIC provides few services for the public. There are over 300 technical libraries in the Defense Department and DTIC works with all of them.
Unclassified and releasable to the public items are released to NTIS for public sale.
Provides access to:
NTIS has been the central clearing house for unclassified scientific and technical information, handling about 1300 titles per week, and 70,000 or so a year. About three million titles have been available on nearly 400 subjects. NTIS has handled documents and publications from more than 350 Federal government agencies.
Bibliographic control has been a problem and there have been quite a few fugitive items.
The Joint Ventures Program was designed to increase revenue by creating new products with for-profit partners (1988). For example, with the National Information Services Corporation, NTIS created the Government Research Center to provide convenient one stop access to NTIS databases plus Agricola, Federal Research in Progress, and Energy Science and Technology. This latter source included most reports from DOE, DOD, and NASA and also some from EPA, NSF, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Health and Human Services.
NTIS is also the home of the Federal Computer Products Center which provides access to digital product titles (data files, software on disk, CD-ROM, and magnetic tape) from 1990-.
By the end of WW II, the U.S. had captured many German scientific and technical documents and the race was on with the Russians to develop new military technology. The Office of the Publication Board, in 1945 was created to collect and declassify these items. Documents were translated and published and a bibliography was prepared. That bibliography became GRA&I which was more recently replaced by the web-based OrderNow.
OrderNow is a free service with abstracts of items received by NTIS within the previous 90 days. Searchable by keyword, title, subject, author, organization, and language.From 1946 - 1996, Government Reports Announcements and Index (C 51 .9/3) (GRA and I) was the bibliography for federal government scientific and technical documents/publications distributed by NTIS. This was a depository item. Provided subject, author, contract/grant number and NTIS order/accession number access. Title access was provided by NTIS Current Title Access which began in 1964 and ceased in 1994. GRA&I included foreign technical reports and periodicals as well as government patents. DTIC reports were included as they were unclassified. About 30 % of the the items listed were foreign, mostly from 15 different governments. Some emphasis on Japanese items. Typically, NTIS did about 1500 translations per year. Some unpublished foreign material was included.
This was the best first place to look for a STM report. GRA & I indexed 94% of the reports in STAR and 79% of those in ERA so it was a useful one stop source.
The Department of Commerce soon created the Office of Technical Services to centralize the flow of technical (includes science) information (documents) in federal agencies. Soon after, the Clearinghouse for Technical Information was created within Commerce. CTI covered both the hard and the soft sciences. In the 1960s, CTI broadened its scope with agreements with a variety of federal agencies. The result was a substantial increase in the items acquired and made available. Presently, there are several hundred such agreements in force.
In 1970, Congress created NTIS to be the self-supporting clearing house for federal scientific and technical information. NTIS:
NTIS has the largest collection of research reports in the
world with more than three million titles. It receives reports
and other items from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce,
Defense, Education, EPA, HHS, HUD, Interior, State, Treasury, and
Transportation as well as Veterans Affairs. Foreign contacts in
Canada, Japan, Russia, Western and Eastern Europe provide access
to some foreign technical reports.
NTIS provides a variety of customer services, including deposit accounts where the customer places a certain amount in the account and orders are shipped until the account needs to be replenished. Accounts receive monthly statements. Usually, the account minimum is $100. Customers may also subscribe for items within 350 subject categories at a reduced per item price. Items matching the customer are automatically shipped. Rush order and express delivery are available at extra cost. NTIS prices are somewhat high, likely the result of few copies sold. Between 33% and 25% of available items are never sold. Income is inadequate. About one-third comes from the sale of print items, one-third from digital sales, and one-third from services to other government agencies.
NTIS has been active in gathering government information on
the web and archiving content which is added to their
database.
Technical reports may not be used because few want or need them. Or lack of use may be a result of identification and retrieval problems. For example, one study found that only about 30% of NTIS publications in GRA & I were in WorldCat.
While there may be some historical interest, typically
technical reports are little used after five years.
Both agencies are out of favor with Congress and both have a
shaky future. However, the models for distribution of government
information are quite different. The GPO is based on the
assumption that taxpayers have a right to government information
and that it should be made widely available without cost to the
user. NTIS is based on a commercial model so that it should not
be funded out of general revenues, but should raise its own funds
by selling government information. For a variety of reasons, this
model has not worked well. Few NTIS items were included in the
FDLP so libraries had to pay for needed scientific and technical
items. NTIS had no formal relationship with the depository
program and some librarians have been unhappy about that. GRA
& I was distributed, but OrderNow is not. With more STM
information free on agency websites, there is even less interest
in NTIS in library land.
Since 1965, various individuals and groups have advocated privatizing NTIS. The OMB in the Reagan - Bush years repeatedly attempted to let NTIS go, but was blocked by Congress. In response, in 1987, the GPO advocated that it merge with NTIS. Nothing happened.
Congress believed that NTIS should be self-supporting if not done by commercial firms. Recall the assumption that a commercial firm does things better and cheaper. The information industry was the primary advocate of having the federal government leave the business of acquiring and distributing scientific and technical information. At one time, about 12 firms were interested in acquiring NTIS. Interestingly, studies showed that NTIS did what it did at lower cost than a private firm. It is not clear how the commercial firm would make money unless it dramatically reduced collection scope to include only those few popular titles and substantially increased prices. Commercial firms seem uninterested in NTIS's archival responsibilities. At the moment, there appears to be little private sector interest in acquiring NTIS.
Although GPO is not supposed to handle technical reports, it does receive and distribute some. Both NASA and DOE have distributed some technical reports via SuDocs in the past. Agency indexes/data bases provide much better coverage and subject indexing than MoCat.
Subject oriented indexing and abstracting services vary notably in the degree to which they cover government documents and publications. PAIS provides access to quite a few social science reports. AGRICOLA provides access to some agricultural reports. COMPENDIX provides access to some engineering reports. In general, subject indexing/abstracting services do not do a good job of providing access to technical reports
With few exceptions, libraries ignore technical reports. Engineering libraries, especially in aerospace, are often an exception. Technical reports may be difficult to acquire and organize. Librarians are not likely to be well-informed or comfortable with them.
Scientists are much less likely to use reports than engineers. One study found that about 67% of the science faculty in a research university had never used government documents/publications for research or teaching.
NTIS has not had a strong relationship with libraries. No depository program means that libraries had to purchase reports from their own budget. The American Statistics Index (ASI) non-depository microfiche collection provides access to some technical report literature and is a nice complement to a STM collection. However, this collection is expensive and is held in few libraries.
Technical reports are more likely to be found in a
departmental library, an engineering library for example, than in
the government information collection just as agricultural
information is likely to be in the agriculture library.
Integrating technical reports with the subject collection might
increase use. Selecting and acquiring individual reports can be
difficult. Where there is reasonable interest, a subscription or
standing order for the series works well. Some times, you can
secure a report from the research agency or the funding agency
website. Since many technical reports are now available via
website, local collections seem unnecessary unless preservation
is a concern.
Normally, reports are self-cataloged and classified. Original cataloging and classification may be expensive although some items may be found on WorldCat.
The DMA became part of the
National Imagery and Mapping Agency in October, 1996. The
NIMA is part of the U.S. Intelligence Community and is intended
to provide "dominant battle space awareness." This new agency
brought together the Defense Mapping Agency, the Central Imagery
Office, and the Defense Dissemination Program Office plus the
CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center, imagery
elements from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National
Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance
Office. NIMA has a broad mission to create and make available
comprehensive databases of global geospatial information and
services. Information useful for marine and terrain navigation is
especially important. Includes the GEOnet Names Server, for
foreign geographical features. Maps are produced on demand and in
response to particular queries. Soon, there will be no hard copy
maps for inventory or sale. Some
products are available for download to the public, but
security issues may limit availability.
Contents include declassified defense maps, specifications,
and data from satellite and space shuttle imaging. Useful for
those interested in digital mapping.
Several other agencies issues maps including NOAA [navigational charts] and
the several parts of the Department of Transportation. For
example, the FAA issues aviation charts.
The USGS has been the
largest non-defense map creator and distributor. It is
particularly well known for topographical maps popular with
outdoors people. It also maintains a variety of maps and
geographical data bases. Reduced budgets have substantially
reduced the ability of the USGS to provide the variety of maps
that many would want. Hard copy maps are being phased out in
favor of digital on-demand publishing.
One of its most notable products is the National Atlas based upon digital technology. Users can display, manipulate, and query National Atlas data as well as create customized products. Data includes scientific, societal, and historical information.
Topographic maps will be available via the web, CD-ROM, and from value added commercial firms. As an example of budget cuts, the Tide and Tidal Current Tables are now available only from commercial firms.
At one time, DOD, NASA, and the AEC accounted for 90% of the Federal R&D budget and as many as 500,000 technical reports per year. Few reports were received from contractors or sub-contractors. More recently, four major research agencies account for about 90% of Federal R&D. Obviously, these change with yearly appropriations from Congress:
A major producer of reports, especially via state agricultural
extension services. Much of this research is funded by states and
funding is increasingly a problem. Besides farming and ranching,
research reports cover home and garden research as well as some
documents on rural sociology and food safety. AGFIND allows one source searching
of more than 100 different databases.
USDA For Kids is colorful, interesting and covers a wide range of popular information on things agricultural. Useful for adults as well. Includes Smokey the Bear pages.
The National Forest Service is part of this agency. Forestry Images is an image database of several thousand color .jpeg images of forest plants, insects, and the like. National Forests Websites is a gateway to the 155 National Forest Lands and 20 national Grass Lands. An interactive map makes browsing easy.
A large number of technical reports and substantial works are now available on the web, including the 1997 Census of Agriculture.
Animal, Plant & Health Inspection Service
Cooperative State Resources, Education & Extension Service
Food Safety & Inspection Service
Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration
National Agricultural Statistics Service
Natural Resources
Conservation Service
Nutrition.gov
focuses on nutrition information for a healthier life.
The Plants Database provides authoritative, comprehensive information about the vascular and nonvascular plants in the U.S. Each plant profile includes an image and a distribution map.
Soil survey maps are available for most U.S. counties and should have broad interest.
Veterinary Services
provides information on the health, quality, and marketability of
animals and animal products. Of interest to those in agriculture,
business, and veterinarians.
Created as the departmental library for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1862 and became a national library in 1962. It coordinates a national network of state land-grant and USDA field libraries. It is also the US center for the international agricultural information system. Holdings include more than 3.3 million items.
AGRICOLA catalogs books since 1970 as the OPAC for the NAL, and periodical articles, as a journal article citation index (also includes book chapters, and some short reports), since 1985. Includes both governmental and non-governmental sources. Provides author, title, subject, and keyword access
The Agriculture Network Information Center is a distributed reference network of land-grant universities and the National Agricultural Library.
Substantial amounts of well-organized information are found on the CDC homepage. Note especially the National Center for Health Statistics and the WONDER search engine which provides access to about 40 databases. Several important datasets are available from the CDC web site, especially strong dealing with mortality and natality.
Includes a National Center for Infectious Diseases, with some emphasis on the prevention of hospital infections.
WISQARS, the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System allows researchers to search for customized injury-related mortality data.
Issues the Joint Publications Research Service which is now part of FBIS, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS monitors and translates unclassified news and commentary from foreign speeches, TV and radio broadcasts, newspapers, and periodicals. Included in the service will be some STM material. The program has been threatened with substantial budget cuts and may not continue. Print products have been discontinued, but there is World News Connection website which contains about 2/3 of the material in FIBS and JPRS.
Began as the Air Documents Division of the Air Material Command's Intelligence Department in 1945 with about 800,000 technical reports from the European Theater of Operations. Later, Japanese documents were added and then about 250,000 technical reports dating back to WWI. Now more than two million documents covering a broad range of subjects including some social science material.
Responsible for DOD scientific, technical, and management information for DOD personnel, other U.S. government agencies, and contractors. Some publicly releasable defense information now available.
Databases include the Technical Report Bibliographic Database, the Research and Technology Work Unit Information System Database (summaries of ongoing R&D, and the Independent Research and Development Database (contractor's R&D efforts). Provides limited access to declassified or unclassified DOD technical reports since 1985. DOD is slow to declassify or release reports for distribution via NTIS, perhaps less than one % of available reports in some years. Does provide good access to unclassified Federal and Military specifications and standards. The NSSN database includes more than 250,000 standards references from more than 600 national and international developers and indicates where to obtain the documents. More information about access to DOD standards may be found at Specs & Standards on the Web.
DTIC also operates the Scientific and Technical Information Network (STINET) which contains citations to unclassified reports since 1985. Some non-DOD reports are included.The DOD Information Analysis Centers managed by DTIC provide specialized reference services--handbooks, evaluation reports, state of the art reports--with subject experts.
The Air University Library's Index to Military Periodicals (1990-) is also available via DTIC.
The Energy
Information Administration Library and Archives provides
access to a considerable number of resources for each of the
major sources of energy. Note the kid's page.
The Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) in Oak Ridge is the primary source for energy related information. OSTI is also the major player in the science.gov initiative. Major OSTI publications include:
The Information Bridge provides free access to more than 60,000 DOE full-text research reports from 1995 -.
EnergyFiles is a gateway allowing searching more than 500 energy related databases and WWW sites with on search. It includes the major databases described below.
Energy
Citations Database [1948- ] includes citations from 148 from
Nuclear Science Abstracts and the Energy Science and
Technology Database. Energy here includes chemistry, physics,
materials, environmental sciences, geology, engineering,
mathematics, climatology, oceanography, and computer science.
First class in all respects.
The PrePRINT
Network provides access to energy related papers, draft
periodical articles, and other items. Brings together about
340,000 preprint materials located on 2000 different websites. A
pre-print alerting service is also now available.
Modeled after the National Institutes of Health's PubMed, the PubSCIENCE database allowed free Internet searching of abstracts and citations of more than two million peer-reviewed articles in more than 1300 scientific journals [but mostly in areas of interest to DOE] by 40 publishers in the physical sciences and other energy-related disciplines. Searched by author, keyword, title and data. Links to article or publisher if commercial. After three years, it was discontinued due to a luke-warm reception by some LIS professionals and a strong campaign by those in the information industry who say it as unfair competition. This remains a controversial topic [a great paper topic].
GrayLIT Network is a gateway to more than 100,000 full-text technical reports located at a variety of agencies, including DOE, DOD, EPA, and NASA.
Federal R&D Summaries included more than 240,000 research summaries and awards from DOE, NIH, and NSF.
The Renewable Resource Data
Center provides good coverage of such natural energy sources
as solar radiation, biomass, geothermal, and wind
power.
The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center provides a wide variety of data and research reports. Global scope.
Los Alamos is famous for research involving nuclear energy. It
is also a pioneer in developing a pre-print archive that has had international
impact.
This agency seems to have received more political attention
than others so its recent research initiatives and management
decisions have received considerable negative attention. The
threatened closure of the EPA libraries will have some impact on
data collection and availability.
Substantial and well
organized site. Good type of user access (children,
teachers). The Center for Environmental Information and
Statistics includes county level profiles and the Envirofacts
Warehouse as well as Enviro$en$e,
common sense solutions to environmental problems. EPA is
responsible for executing Federal environmental protection laws.
Consumer information includes energy conservation and Radon
problems.
The Air Quality Index will interest many concerned with allergies and related health problems.
Enforcement and Compliance
History Online is an "inspection, violation, enforcement, and
penalty" database for more than 800,000 facilities regulated by
EPA. Especially useful for learning more about what might have
happened in your neighborhood.
The National Environmental Data
Index [NEDI] is a multi-agency project and allows one stop
full-text searching of twelve government databases.
The National
Environmental Publication Internet site contains more than
9,000 documents.
Science Inventory is a searchable database of more than 4,000 ST items. Descriptions include abstracts and links to final reports.
The Superfund site
provides some good information. Note the "Superfund for kids."
the map of hazardous waste sites is most useful ads is the
Enviromapper and Records of Decision.
The Window to My
Environment provides access to federal, state, and local
information about environmental conditions.
EPA also regulates pesticides and organic farming which will
interest some consumers. The EPA provides specific
information on pesticides and food
The National Council for Science and the Environment's
PopPlanet is an
interesting non-governmental source that brings together
population and environmental resources. Country reports for many
countries. PopEnvironment News is a good current awareness
source.
HazardMaps.gov provides
a cartographic look at disasters or environmental hazards such as
floods.
FEMA for Kids:
Tornadoes is an excellent example of authoritative
popularization.
U.S. Fire
Administration Kid's page includes activities and a variety
of tips from a talking fire extinguisher.
FEMA Storm Watch is
an excellent source for storm advisories and related
information.
Often in the news because food and drug safety remains a major popular concern. The FDA Almanac is an excellent, if dated, place to learn more about how this agency regulates consumer products to ensure the safety and health of Americans. The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition provides useful information on food additives, pesticides, food labeling, and nutrition.
Considerable research and data are available to increase understanding of health and social services. A graying population, and care-givers, will be interested in the Administration on Aging and the Aging Network, especially the National Aging Information Center with its Age Info service. The Health Care Financing Administration is responsible for Medicare.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration includes the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information. The National Institutes of Health include the National Institute on Drug Abuse which emphasizes more basic research.National Guideline Clearinghouse provides information about a large number of clinical practice guidelines for health care professionals. Guidelines may be searched by disease or condition, treatment or intervention and issuing organization (more than 100).
The National Toxicology
Globalhealth.gov illuminates the connection between domestic and foreign health issues.
DOI includes the Geological Survey, the Fish and Wildlife
Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management,
Minerals Management Service, National Park Service, the Bureau of
Reclamation, the National Park Service, and the Office of Surface
Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement. All may be easily reached
via the DOI website.
GeoSpatial One-Stop is
intended to establish a nationwide geospatial infrastructure.
Geodata.gov is designed to be the federal repository for digital
geographic content. The Map Viewer allows users to create
maps.
This agency is involved in dealing with endangered species,
both flora and fauna, and detailed information and photographs
can be found via their FWS
website Also responsible for several programs involving
migratory birds and cooperative wildlife efforts.
Birds, Birds, Birds is a
clearing house of information on birds, including waterfowl
population surveys. Good collection of educational materials,
including Birdscapes magazine.
The Forest Service
Database contains a large collection of natural resources
literature as well as an extensive collection of FS records and
research content.
You may wish to examine Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey searchable database, with several search options, covers publications back to 1785. You may search USGS FAQs to get started on a search or identify the likely agency. Similarly, the U.S. Geological Survey Library [while it exists] is another good entry point.
Major subject focus is biology, geology, mapping, and water while major themes are hazards, environment, resources, and information management. The Biological Resources Division maintains the National Biological Information Infrastructure. The emphasis on hazards results in products with considerable popularity such as the National Fire Maps.
The USGS Learning Web is a collection of pages especially useful for K12 education. Navigation is not always intuitive. A Tapestry of Time and Terrain integrates the geological and topographical maps of the U.S. Many maps are of broad interest.
Many USGS products are repackaged with value-added by
for-profit firms. Maps are a problem because the U.S. (not
Alaska) requires 53,689 7.5 minute topo maps and about 75% sell
less than 100 copies per year. Note the Locating Publications and Data
Products webpages, especially the online map lists. National Mapping Information is easily
available. An example of a particularly important program is
the National Water Quality
Assessment Program.
Substantially reduced funding has had quite an impact. There
is increased interest in partnering with non-governmental
agencies. Will no longer do any map updating that requires ground
checking without a 50/50 sponsor. TopoZone is a commercial site that
provides access to U.S. topographical maps. Some features require
a fee.
National Interagency Fire
Center is a multi-department initiative to coordinate
preventive and proactive efforts in wildfire management. Much
useful information on fire prevention and mitigation as well as
fire statistics and news of current fires.
NatureNet is the
National Park Service's natural resource web site. Popular and
interesting.
Especially useful for weather information (National Weather Service, National
Hurricane Center, and National Severe Storms Laboratory). Focuses
on the atmospheric
and space sciences which includes air quality and weather
including floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Another
focus is on the ocean
services which includes fisheries, marine wildlife, mapping,
charting, and navigation, marine pollution, tides and sea level
and Tsunamis. NOAA also has an interesting photo collection at their
website with weather and oceanic subjects emphasized. The
National Environmental Data
Index is a notable product. NOAA is responsible for the U.S.
daily
weather maps and the
monthly weather review [but only free before 1973]. Although
time lag can be a problem, the Storm
Events database is useful in studying storms by state,
county, and date. National Hazard
statistics examines fatalities by types of storm or event
such as lightning.
NOAA has several research and consumer information centers. Examples include:
Because of a computer security problem many DOI websites were
recently closed by a federal judge concerned with malpractice in
the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The National Mental
Health Information Center is a clearing house of useful
resources suitable for laypeople as well as the
professional.
Via the Science Reading Room, LC provides Science Tracer Bullets Online,
bibliographic guides (from 1989-) designed to help people with a
general knowledge find information on a popular, current subjects
in science and technology such as telecommunication or
biodiversity (hard copy editions are often difficult to find) as
well as topics of historical interest (Balloons and Airships).
Include good topic introductions and useful
descriptors.
Established in 1863, the National Academy of Science has
expanded over the years.Today, there is also the National
Research Council, the National Academy of Engineering, and the
Institute of Medicine. The National Academies Press includes
about 3,000 books that may be read online without cost. The
website, from time to time, provides access to books, position
statements, and other resources on topical questions. For
example, in June 2005, there was a list of Evolution Resources
from the National Academies.
The Marian Koshland Science Museum has interesting exhibits and resources for teachers.
As an indication of research diversity, the Goddard Space Flight Center uses satellites to track migratory birds, especially threatened species.
There are several NASA facilities and websites. NASA Spacelink's search engine allows you to search all of NASA. The "find similar" feature can be especially useful.
Many aerospace technical report citations are now available via the NASA CASI Technical Report Server on their website. Note the current and historical importance of the Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports
The NASA site for children NASA Kid's is especially well done. Good organization. Another NASA site likely to appeal to children and adults is Great Images in NASA which includes several thousand images from NASA's history. Collection is searchable.
The "institutes" are a group of notable biomedical research
centers. Note the National Institute for Environmental Health
Sciences. The Clinical
Trials Directory is a searchable database of more than 4000
federal and private medical studies. Aimed at patients, family
members, and the public. Good background information on clinical
trials. The consumer resources are very good.
Amid some controversy, NIH opened PubMed Central, a free
online archive of full-text, peer-reviewed research papers in the
life sciences. PubMed has two sections: (1) papers not peer
reviewed, but accepted by a scholarly society and (2) peer
reviewed by a scholarly periodical. PubMed is an active archive.
Some publishers have decided not to participate. As you might
imagine, some in Congress prefer to rely upon commercial firms.
With a substantial grant, PubMed will digitize almost two million
pages of historically important medical periodicals and
substantially improve retrospective coverage. The Pub Med
Tutorial is very good.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is aimed at the professional with an extensive collection of information on research, including research opportunities.
The National Cancer Institute
provides solid content on all aspects of cancer, including
clinical trials, statistics, research/funding, and news. Clear
and informative.
There is also a National Institute of Mental Health. One of
its websites focuses on child and
adolescent mental health. Excellent source for teachers and
librarians working with young people.
The Office of the
Surgeon General website provides access to a variety of
reports.
Founded in 1865 to supervise the Surgeon General's Library, the mission of NLM is to provide information to health professionals and not to the public. It all began with John Shaw Billings and the print Index Medicus in 1879. The print version ceased at the end of 2004, but the content continues in MEDLINE. MEDLINE provides access to the content of about 5000 U.S. and foreign biomedical periodicals. Most records are in English or contain English language abstracts. Not all MEDLINE sites are complete. MEDLINE databases are free when accessed via the NLM Gateway or PubMed. MEDLINE (1966-) provides citation and abstract. MEDLINEPLUS is the consumer health database. PubMed includes the content of MEDLINE and also provides (sometimes for fee) access to full-text via link. MEDLINE is a family of about 40 databases. MEDLINE contains all the citations in Index Medicus plus nursing and dental literature. Thoughtful use of Medical Subject Headings (HE 20.3612/3-4:yr) will make your searches much more productive. NLM Access provides free access to full-text documents. Though aimed at clinicians, there are some consumer brochures.
PubMed contains the MEDLINE database plus links to the molecular biology databases of the National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI]. Older citations [predating 1966] are gradually being added. PubMed provides full-text of articles of participating publishers. Some full-text content requires a fee. NCBI has a small collection of biomedical texts available for search and retrieval from their Bookshelf page. PubMed provides excellent but somewhat complicated searching. Do take the online tutorial before searching. Knowledge of medical nomenclature as seen in the Medical Subject Headings [MeSH] is important. Good tutorials are also available for MeSH.
The NLM Gateway is the best way to Search MEDLINE or other NLM databases. Unlike PubMed, it includes monographs, annuals, and AV content held by NLM. The Gateway also allows searching:
MEDLINEplus began in 1998. Focus is on consumer friendly medical information. Content i includes directories, health news, access to government and non-government databases, a link to PubMed, medical dictionaries,and a medical encyclopedia.
The National Library of Medicine's online catalog LOCATORPLUS allows Internet access
to the world's largest medical library. NLM's ChemIDPlus
is dictionary of more than 360,000 chemicals that impact
biological functions in humans and animals.
NIST was formerly the National Bureau of Standards (until 1988). NIST laboratories conduct research on building and fire research, electronics and electrical engineering, chemical science and technology, materials science, and information technology (more than standards).
National Institute of Standards Publications web page
Especially important as a funding agency for pure science
Be familiar with its grants and
awards pages. NSF grants are important sources of funding for
most research universities.
The National Science, Mathematics,
Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library is
under construction. It is intended to enhance learning and
teaching with reliable interactive materials.
Technical and some popular information on nuclear power and nuclear technology/engineering. Useful website. Concerns about terrorism have recently reduced content available via web.
Creates and enforces workplace safety standards. On-line services include how to file a complaint, free consultation, and the Asbestos Advisor.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health with a strong research orientation. Emphasis on health hazards, including those resulting from exposure to chemicals.
Their Science Information Exchange was a pioneer, well-received effort, but was phased out in 1981 due to lack of funding. NTIS partially filled the gap with its Federal Research in Progress database. The Exchange was strong in physical sciences, engineering, and life sciences. Available via subscription, information includes project title, keywords, start date, estimated completion date, PI, associated organization, summary, and a progress report. Many government agencies have their own RIP databases, but these are often difficult for outsiders to access.
The Arctic Studies
Center is devoted to the study of Northern peoples, their
history, and environment. Located within the National Museum of
Natural History. More social than natural science in
orientation.
The National Museum of Natural History hosts an exhibit called "the Dynamic Earth."
The Department of Systematic Biology is responsible for the
Mammal Species of the
World, a database of mammalian taxonomy with names for more
than 4,000 currently recognized mammal species. There is also a
searchable database for North American
Mammals.
Includes a distinguished migratory bird center that combines
research, education, and training. The Smithsonian Contributions
to Botany, and to Zoology monographic series relate subjects to
collections and research in the museum, especially the National
Museum of Natural History.
The Smithsonian
Physical Tables is now available online and should interest
scientists and engineers.
The current Director appears to be de-emphasizing research in favor of more popular activities likely to appeal to donors.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics and its Transportation
Library are important resources. The Federal Aviation
Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the
National Highway Transportation Safety Board issue a wide variety
of statistical data.
The Coast Guard Storm
Center provides emergency information for boaters and useful
storm information.
Online Digital Special Collections provide access to several digital collections such as Civil Aeronautic Manuals, Historical Aircraft Accident Reports, FAA and CAA research reports.
TRIS Online
is the Transportation Research Information Services Database
which provides access to more than 400,000 items from 1960 to the
present. Search by author, title or keyword.
