Subject: DOE Unveils Citations Database



   For the past few years, biomedical researchers have been the only
   scientists to enjoy a free, comprehensive papers database courtesy of
   Uncle Sam. But now there's a sort of PubMed for the physical sciences
   as well. Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled PubSCIENCE, an
   online citations database for physical sciences journals announced
   last summer (Science, 6 August, p. 811).

   With 19 publishers (including AAAS, publisher of Science) and about
   1000 journals lined up so far, PubSCIENCE already has over a million
   citations dating as far back as 1974. For example, searching last week
   for "nanotechnology" brought up 571 references in publications ranging
   from the Bulletin of the American Physical Society to Technology
   Review. Over 85% of the citations pull up free abstracts, and recent
   ones link to the journals' own sites, where you might need a
   subscription to see full text, says R. L. Scott, associate manager of
   DOE's Office of Scientific and Technical Information. He says
   PubSCIENCE expects to build up to as many as 2000 journals of
   interest to DOE scientists, as well as cut a deal soon with a private
   firm that would broker full-text articles.

   --JOCELYN KAISER
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   © 1999 by the American Association for the Advancement of
   Science.

A. Ratnakar
Raman Research Institute Library
Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080,
India.