This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: m...@global.co.za
_________________________________________________________________ The following message was enclosed: Dear Sir, I will be writing to you concerning the NTIS dissemination plan, Kind regards, Mary Jean Johnson Cape Town South Africa email: m...@global.co.za (h) m...@capechamber.co.za (w) _________________________________________________________________ > From the issue dated July 20, 2001 Congress Acts to Shut Down Government Web Site Used for Journals Research A Web site operated by the U.S. Energy Department that allows scientists to search journals for citations and abstracts in the physical sciences is in jeopardy because of a bill approved last month by the House of Representatives. The bill is accompanied by a report that recommends eliminating the service. The service, PubScience, allows researchers to examine more than 1,000 peer-reviewed journals free and at the same time, instead of searching multiple Web sites, publications, and references (http://pubsci.osti.gov). PubScience is the Energy Department's most popular Web portal, receiving millions of search requests a year, said Walter Warnick, director of the department's Office of Scientific and Technical Information. The department spends about a half-million dollars a year to operate it. However, a report accompanying the Energy Department's 2002 appropriations bill, H.R. 2311, asks the department "to carefully review its information services such as PubScience to be sure that such efforts remain focused on appropriate scientific journals." A House aide said that the service also competes with private companies that index scientific journals. The report, which was written by the House Appropriations Committee, mirrors his remark. The Energy Department is not legally required to abide by the report. But the cautionary language combined with steep budget cuts for the department's technical-management program make eliminating the service a foregone conclusion if the bill is signed into law, an Energy Department official said. The Senate is expected to approve a comparable spending bill for the Department of Energy, but it is unclear whether its legislation will include similar language on PubScience. The PubScience text was inserted in the House report after lobbying by the Software & Information Industry Association on behalf of member companies, including Chemical Abstracts Services, Reed Elsevier, and Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, according to the association. "The Department of Energy has entered into the role of secondary publishers," said David LeDuc, a lobbyist for the software association. "There's existing private-sector services. We would like to have the public sector stop competing with these services." But Stephen Miles Sacks, editor and publisher of Scipolicy -- The Journal of Science and Health Policy, said PubScience is the only Web service that compiles abstracts from about 19 small, niche scientific publications, including his. He called the House action "irresponsible and damaging to the advancement of science and medicine." _________________________________________________________________ Chronicle subscribers can read this article on the Web at this address: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i45/45a02902.htm If you would like to have complete access to The Chronicle's Web site, a special subscription offer can be found at: http://chronicle.com/4free _________________________________________________________________ You may visit The Chronicle as follows: * via the World-Wide Web, at http://chronicle.com * via telnet at chronicle.com _________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education