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RSS feedsFIZ Karlsruhe has launched an English-language version of its Io-port informatics portal offering centralised access to more than two million computer science publications. The German version of the portal went online in January 2006.
Io-port.net pools information from worldwide informatics databases CCSB, CompuScience , DBLP and LeaBib. It also provides exclusive access to all texts from the Lecture Notes in Informatics series published by German society Gesellschaft für Informatik.
According to FIZ Karlsruhe, an important element of the service is to offer sustained access to these computer science publications for the first time.
Company representative Gerhard Herlan said: “The community itself has been collecting and offering information on publications in informatics in various projects before. However, the continuity in service was not always guaranteed. Gesellschaft für Informatik, together with FIZ Karlsruhe as a longstanding producer of the CompuScience database, saw the need to combine the various sources under a single umbrella.”
FIZ Karlsruhe produces databases in energy, informatics and mathematics. It focuses on the development of e-science solutions and provision of a worldwide collection of databases through its online service STN International, which is jointly operated by three partners: FIZ Karlsruhe (Europe), Chemical Abstracts Service CAS and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.
Io-port is derived from a project sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research to design, build and operate a network in the field of informatics.
The portal is a community-specific information service in informatics, which will be accessed mainly by individuals, while STN is targeted primarily at information professionals searching for patent and science and technology data.
Io-port offers free basic services, including a simple search without access to full texts, the informatics lexicon provided by the Gesellschaft für Informatik, and special pages with extensive information on various informatics topics.
Documents stored in Io-port can be directly accessed online or ordered through an automatic document broker service.
An e-mail alert service informs users if new publications matching a predefined search query have been added to the database.
The annual fee for a single-user licence, including access to services such as document manager or e-mail alerts, is e125 (£85). A similar licence for all scientists of an institute or university department costs e800 (£544) a year.
