The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), provided by the US Geological Survey Biological Informatics Office, is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation’s biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high-quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools maintained by NBII partners and other contributors in government agencies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and private industry. NBII partners and collaborators also work on new standards, tools, and technologies that make it easier to find, integrate, and apply biological resources information. Resource managers, scientists, educators, and the general public use the NBII to answer a wide range of questions related to the management, use, or conservation of this nation’s biological resources.

OSU Libraries now has access to the Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center as part of the statewide database licensing contract with Gale.

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center pulls together background information and pro & con viewpoints about current social issues. The database includes:

• Nearly 7,000 viewpoint articles
• 41 complete titles from the Information Plus reference program
• More than 275 primary documents
• 300 biographies of social activists and reformers
• Nearly 5,000 statistical tables, charts and graphs
• Nearly 4,600 topic overviews that provide context for the issues
• More than 775 court-case overviews
• 334 profiles of federal agencies and special interest groups
• 2,000 links to reviewed and subject-indexed Web sites
• More than 1,300 images, all hand-selected to support the topics covered
• More than 135 full-text periodicals and newspapers
• Podcasts from the Weekly Presidential Radio Address

JSTOR Plant Science is an online environment that brings together global plants content, tools, and people interested in plant science. It provides access to foundational content vital to plant science – plant type specimens, taxonomic structures, scientific literature, and related materials. They are offering JSTOR Plant Science to all participating institutions worldwide at no cost.

JSTOR Plant Science offers access to botanical and other resources from around the world including:

• The world’s largest database of plant type specimens representing the botanical diversity of the planet. More than 600,000 specimens are available today. When complete, there will be an estimated 2.2 million.
• Over 175,000 scientific research articles and other content dating back hundreds of years from leading academic journals including Kew Bulletin, Mycologia, International Journal of Plant Sciences, Science, PNAS, and others.
• Foundational reference works and books such as The Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa, Flowering Plants of South Africa, and illustrations from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.
• A significant set of correspondence, including Kew’s Directors’ Correspondence which included hand-written letters and memorandum from the senior staff of Kew from 1841 to 1928.
• More than 20,000 paintings, photographs, drawings, and other images.

Green energy-related research and development (R&D) results are now more easily accessible through a new online portal, DOE Green Energy.

The free public portal was launched on the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) within the Office of Science. The site is designed to ease access to green energy R&D information for use by researchers, scientists, educators, students and the general public. Researchers can use the DOE Green Energy portal to speed scientific discovery and innovation; business and industry can use the R&D to stimulate economic growth related to renewable energy. Educators, students, and the public can discover applications of renewable energy science and energy efficiency best practices. The portal provides technical documents from thousands of R&D projects conducted at DOE National Laboratories and by DOE-funded awards at universities.