DOST introduces local science portal a la Google

DOST introduces local science portal a la Google

First posted 10:50pm (Mla time) Mar 14, 2006
By Alexander Villafania
INQ7.net

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) recently launched the country’s first science and technology metacrawler search engine called Science.ph (www.science.ph).

The DOST’s Science and Technology Information Institute (STII) uses the same model as the US government’s Science.gov (www.science.gov), wherein only S&T content can be searched from the libraries of S&T agencies and related institutes.

STII Systems Development Team Leader Joseph Jennifer Esguerra said in an interview that for a specific keyword Science.ph will come up with a list of all related records that can be visited.

The STII team is building up the keywords of the search engine, which already has records from 35 DOST sub-agencies out of 65.

“We’ll be adding more records from other DOST sub-agencies in the next two weeks. We’re also going to include the records of the Department of Agriculture, the Philippine Rice Research Institute, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines an the University of the Philippines,” Esguerra said.

He also explained that Science.ph is closely related, but not connected to the e-Library Project (www.elib.gov.ph), which is a joint undertaking by the DOST with the National Library of the Philippines, Commission on Higher Education, the University of the Philippines and Department of Agriculture.

While the e-Library website includes content from the DOST and its partner institutions, Science.ph is largely a Google-like search engine.

The metcrakler also has keyword selection features for related searches into Philippine and foreign databases, as well as thesauri for searched words.