IAEA digital library adds information platform
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Nuclear Information System (INIS) has increased its user friendliness and knowledge expanse by incorporating Invenio, an open-source platform developed by the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
About INIS: Founded in 1970, INIS is a repository of nearly 5 million reports, books, scientific articles, conference papers, and other knowledge products covering topics in nuclear science, reactor technology, materials science, medical applications, decommissioning, and other areas in which the IAEA is involved.
Using Invenio: Advancements in automation and accessibility to INIS have been added, as well as a major increase in capacity for handling new product entries. According to the IAEA, Invenio allows INIS to connect with other information repositories, facilitating the sharing of content and expanding its use by all participating databases. INIS will be the first large repository to implement full-text search with Invenio, searching both metadata and PDF text.
“This new platform will help INIS expand its role as a global player in open science, improving its capabilities as an information hub that facilitates the pursuit of nuclear science for peaceful purposes,” said Dibuleng Mohlakwana, head of the IAEA’s Nuclear Information Section.
Sea of info: The IAEA has noted that INIS relies on contributions from more than 130 countries and 11 international organizations. More than 100,000 new knowledge products are added each year. INIS staff supplement the contributions by collecting information from some of the largest publishers, including Elsevier, Nature-Springer, and the Institute of Physics.
The landscape of scientific publishing has changed greatly in the years since INIS was founded, with an increasing emphasis on open access. Organizations like the American Nuclear Society are providing more information and are making it freely available, while repositories such as arXiv, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and PubMed have made scientific knowledge more accessible than ever before.
“One of the great things about this platform is that whatever we develop here can be shared with all the other organizations,” said Astrit Ademaj, nuclear systems support analyst and project manager for the implementation of Invenio. “So, not only are we sharing scientific information with the world, but we’re also sharing what we develop with Invenio.”
Ease of use: Information entered into Invenio will be automatically categorized and tagged with key words, a job previously done manually. This work will now be primarily handled by NADIA (Nuclear Artificial intelligence for Document Indexing and Analysis), an AI tool developed by the IAEA.
Contributors to INIS previously had to send in their entries using a unique language and format. Now a user-friendly form is provided, so specialized knowledge and training are no longer necessary.
Quote: "Many of the items available on INIS are quite fascinating," said Brian Bales, INIS coordinator. “One of the most popular recent additions is the Prospective Study Bluebook on Nuclear Energy to Support Low Carbon—a cooperative effort between nuclear companies in China and France to address the challenges of climate change. Over the last five years, we’ve added over 600,000 such knowledge products.”