Ten Federal Agencies Team To Launch Science.gov Website

Posted on December 6, 2002

Ten federal agencies have teamed to launch science.gov, a new website which is geared toward an audience that ranges from academics to private business owners. The site offers a compilation of information from 10 government agencies and 14 scientific and technical organizations. The Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and Interior departments, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Science Foundation, will all offer information on Science.gov. The site is an offspring of Firstgov.gov, and houses information from the multiple agencies that perform scientific research under one roof.

"Science.gov provides the unique ability to search across the content within databases as well as across websites," said Eleanor Frierson, deputy director of the National Agricultural Library and co-chair of the science.gov Alliance, the interagency group that created the site. "It shows that federal agencies can work together to pull off something that none of them could do individually."

Users can search for technical reports, journal citations, databases, fact sheets and links to other federal websites by clicking on one of 12 subject areas such as �agriculture and food� or �health and medicine.� Or they can complete a general search across all subject areas. Access to the site is free and does not require registration.

The project received two of seven Firstgov.gov grants, giving Frierson and her co-directors about $175,000 to work with. But she said that more money will be needed to add features and keep monitoring the content to ensure that it is up-to-date and of the highest quality.