Across-Government Science Site Highlights ARS Research Information

A new government online source of reliable information about science and technology from across federal government organizations carries multiple links to Agricultural Research Service science sites.

Fourteen scientific and technical information organizations from 10 major science agencies have collaborated to create science.gov, the "FirstGov for Science" web site. From science.gov, users can find more than 1,000 government information resources about science, including several hundred ARS sites.

For example, clicking on the "Agriculture and Food" subhead brings up links to the ARS National Agricultural Library's AGRICOLA bibliographic database, the ARS Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center, the ARS Jamie Whitten Delta States Research Center, the ARS Technology Transfer Automated Retrieval System (TEKTRAN), and much more.

In the new web site links also to ARS National Research Programs, the ARS Home Page and ARS News and Information pages, as well as many other science sites across government. The resources at these sites include technical reports, journal citations, databases, federal web sites, and fact sheets. The information is all free. No registration is required.

Science.gov is intended for the educational and library communities, as well as for business people, entrepreneurs, agency researchers and anyone with an interest in science. Support for building the science.gov gateway came from "CENDI," an interagency committee of senior managers of federal science and technology information programs. Eleanor Frierson, deputy director of the ARS National Agricultural Library, served as co-chair of the science.gov Alliance, the interagency group that created science.gov.

The Federal organizations participating in science.gov are the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Interior, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and National Science Foundation.

NAL is part of ARS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency. The NAL web site is its electronic gateway to a wealth of agricultural information resources.