NSDL Collections Based on DOE User Facilities

Christopher Klaus 10/05/03

Department of Energy Overview

The DOE funds some of the most advanced R&D user facilities, which are located at national laboratories and universities. These User Facilities are our nation’s foundation for advancing scientific knowledge. Each year these facilities are used by more than 18,000 researchers from universities, other government agencies and private industry.

Besides being the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, the DOE also sponsors a range of science education initiatives.

The Office of Science is a principal supporter of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers early in their careers. About 50 percent of its research funding goes to support research at 250 colleges, universities, and institutes nationwide.

The Office of Science also reaches out to America’s youth in grades K-12 and their teachers to help improve students’ knowledge of science and mathematics and their understanding of global energy and environmental challenges.

DOE User FacilitiesArgonne National Lab

•Advanced Photon Source• Intense Pulsed Neutron Source•Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System

Lawrence BerkeleyNational Lab

•Advanced Light Source

•National Center for Electron Microscopy

•National Energy Research Scientific Computing Facility

MIT•Bates Accelerator Center•Plasma Science & Fusion Center

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

•B-Factory•Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory

Pacific Northwest National Lab

•Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab

Brookhaven National Lab•Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider•National Synchrotron Light Source

Oak Ridge National Lab•High-Flux Isotope Reactor•Surface Modification & Characterization Center

•Spallation Neutron Source

Thomas Jefferson NationalAccelerator Facility

•Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility

Los Alamos National Lab•Los Alamos Neutron Science Center

Sandia National Lab•Combustion Research Facility

Princeton University•Princeton Plasma Physics Lab

University of Illinois•Electron Microscopy Center for Materials Research

•Center for Microanalysis of Materials

General Atomics

•DIII-D Tokamak

Fermi National Accelerator Lab

•Tevatron

Physics AcceleratorsSynchrotron Light SourcesNeutron SourcesSpecial Purpose FacilitiesLarge Fusion Experiments

University of Notre Dame•Pulse Radiolysis Facility

Kansas State University•James R. MacDonald Laboratory

Why Focus on DOE User Facilities?

The DOE User Facilities have a gold mine of scientific knowledge and large data sets with structures in place for scientific reviews.

Educational outreach is often in a User Facility’s mission statement. A local educational user community usually exists, collaborating with the research user community. Such an educational community could be leveraged for educational reviews.

These educational efforts would benefit greatly from the tools, services, and national dissemination capabilities available from the NSDL. In many cases the educational efforts need to be organized and gathered, which would fall naturally into an NSDL Collection effort.

DOE funding for the existing educational efforts would be able to maintain an NSDL Collection. The hard part is convincing those in control of that funding that this would be a good path to take, which in my opinion is where an NSDL grant come into play.

Example 1: The AVC The NSDL funded Atmospheric Visualization Collection (AVC) was developed to enhance physical science education and research through visualization of atmospheric data. This collection includes an archive of atmospheric data images and educational material based on these images. The use of NSDL collaboration tools encourages contributions from the educational and research communities to continue AVC development.

The AVC is based on the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program. Supplying a collection that met both research and educational community needs, has resulted in a rough but workable sustainability path through DOE funding. The main flaw was in the selection of the ARM program, which is declining in funding each year.

Example 2: The APS Digital Library The Advanced Photon Source (APS) is a User Facility at Argonne National Laboratory. After seeing the success of the AVC for national dissemination, the APS decided to collaborate on an NSDL proposal to build an APS Digital Library. While the proposal was declined, the APS continues to work towards developing an APS Digital Library.

This development is at a slow pace, so I still see a significant need for the NSDL funding to initiate collection development. That said the NSDL tools introduced to the APS are already rapidly gaining users and becoming a part of the APS culture.