The [U.S. Department of Energy] Office of Scientific and Technical Information legacy collection contains an estimated one million technical reports representing six decades of energy research that is, for the most part, unavailable in electronic format. On average, OSTI receives close to two hundred requests each month to digitize specific reports, with the vast majority of the requests coming from DOE employees and contractors. The legacy collection represents an enormous investment in research and development from the Atomic Energy Commission, Energy Research and Development Administration and Department of Energy. With the growing tendency of many researchers to rely solely on research information available electronically, this incredibly valuable resource collection is often ignored. By not having electronic access to previous research, scientific advancement may be diminished and funds wasted duplicating what has already been done.
OSTI has recently implemented the Adopt-a-Doc program that allows the general public to pay for the digitization of a document of their choosing. Documents in need of digitization can be identified by searching the Energy Citations Database and clicking on the Materials available for digitization box on the Fielded Search window. This is proving to be a popular service. Unfortunately, with the level of digitization that OSTI can currently handle, it will take a very long time to digitize the entire legacy collection. ...
The OSTI legacy collection is very rich in research all types of energy technologies. Although OSTI distributed much of the collection to libraries, laboratories, and contractors, access to this research by scientists and engineers is difficult at best. It is important for DOE to make this historic research collection easily accessible by digitizing the legacy collection and making it available on every researcher’s desktop.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
