Plans for an OA portal of world science

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and the British Library have agreed to build an OA portal of world science. From yesterday's announcement:
...Called ‘Science.world,’ the planned resource would be available for use by scientists in all nations and by anyone interested in science. The approach will capitalise on existing technology to search vast collections of science information distributed across the globe, enabling much-needed access to smaller, less well-known sources of highly valuable science. Following the model of Science.gov, the U.S. interagency science portal that relies on content published by each participating agency, ‘Science.world’ will rely on scientific resources published by each participating nation. Other countries have been invited to participate in this international effort.
Recognising the impact of international research efforts, [Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Under Secretary for Science for DOE] stated, “It is time to make the science offerings of all nations searchable in one global gateway. Our goal is to speed up the sharing of knowledge on a global scale. As a result, we believe that science itself will speed up.” ...
Objectives of the “Science.world” initiative are to:
Search dispersed, electronic collections in various science disciplines;
Provide direct, seamless and free searching of open-source collections and portals;
Build upon existing and already successful national models for searching;
Complement existing information collections and systems; and
Raise the visibility and usage of individual sources of quality science information....
Posted by Peter Suber at 1/26/2007 09:35:12 AM.