New information resource: Internet set of databases

I get the electronic British Library’s Research and Innovation Newsletter, and the last issue mentioned a terrific new on-line resource for those of us who are interested in science and technology:

THE BRITISH LIBRARY AND US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY COLLABORATE ON GLOBAL SCIENCE GATEWAY
“The British Library, along with eight other participating countries, recently opened an online global gateway to science information from 15 national portals. The gateway, WorldWideScience.org, was developed and is maintained by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information. It gives researchers and anyone interested in science the capability to search science portals not easily accessible through popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo!”

 The database searches in real time – so that the search continues after the first results appear on the list.This does mean a slightly slow process, but very current items are retreived.

Searching uses simple Boolean operators, and supports the normal wildcard symbols.I did a quick and dirty search for information on ants that nest in trees, and was impressed by the diversity of information  retrieved on what is a fairly specialised subject.

I have not had the time to do a proper evaluation of this resource, but first impressions are very favourable. A free abstract is available where possible; the full paper can be purchased. One of the articles retrieved was from “British Library Direct, a new service that allows you to search across 20,000 journals for free and order full text using your credit card.”

Remarkable!