Thursday, August 9, 2001

Senate Bill Offers Tacit Approval of Scholarly Web Portal Scorned by House By ANDREA L. FOSTER Washington The fate of PubScience -- the U.S. Department of Energy's Web portal that allows scientists to search journal abstracts in the physical sciences -- looks brighter following Senate approval last month of a spending bill for the agency. The bill is accompanied by a report that does not recommend eliminating the service. Earlier last month, the House of Representatives approved a comparable spending bill, but that legislation was accompanied by a report that proposed scrapping PubScience. An aide to the Senate Appropriations Committee said Wednesday that the committee had given tacit approval to PubScience by failing to mention the popular Web site in its report. The site receives millions of search requests a year and costs about half a million dollars a year to operate. It allows researchers to peruse more than a thousand peer-reviewed journals free and at the same time, instead of searching multiple Web sites and publications. But the Software and Information Industry Association has lobbied to eliminate the Web site, saying that it competes with private companies that index scientific journals. When lawmakers return to Washington next month, after a summer recess, negotiators for the House and the Senate are expected merge their spending bills into one piece of legislation. Whether the compromise bill will retain money for PubScience is unclear. Background article from The Chronicle: House of Representatives Seeks to Close Free Bibliographic Database (7/2/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Freshmen living in dorms face greater risk of meningitis, study finds Chemistry journal will publish study despite ownership dispute Appeals court allows student performance of McNally's Corpus Christi U. of Oregon backs away from restrictive media policy on sporting events Suspect in Purdue double homicide arrested in New York 2 Japanese institutions create incubators for university-based start-ups Nigeria authorizes the creation of 4 private universities Senate bill offers tacit approval of scholarly Web portal scorned by House Grocery lists for students taking an online biology course include items for home experiments