Enhanced Research Tools: Search and Display Extracted Figures and Tables in OSTI.GOV

From the U.S. Dept. of Energy:

OSTI.GOV has introduced a search for figure and table images included in DOE’s collection of scientific and technical information. This innovative new feature allows users to search for and retrieve documents as usual, but the associated images are also retrieved, and can be viewed with the corresponding document or in a separate tab for images only. Currently, over 5,000 documents have been mined for images, resulting in over 41,000 available for searching.

To populate and power this image search, relevant figures and tables are extracted from full-text documents using modified open-source software, and then the images and associated metadata are carefully curated in-house to make them findable at OSTI.GOV. Emphasis has been placed on extracting visual materials from some of the newest full-text records in OSTI.GOV, specifically journal articles accepted manuscripts that have recently been released from embargo.

Users can take advantage of this feature by conducting a basic or advanced search as usual. Images that are returned based on those search criteria will be displayed in the new Figures/Tables tab at the top of the search results page. Selecting one of the image results will enlarge that result and display basic metadata, including the title of the document that contains the image, the related image caption, image size, and the location of the image in the document; the title of the document is linked to that document’s full bibliographic record at OSTI.GOV.

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Filed under: Journal Articles, News, Patrons and Users