About
The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) hosts one of the world’s largest collections of published information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. INIS covers also the economic and environmental aspects of non-nuclear energy sources (fossil fuels, renewables, hydrogen) and of their development (resources, exploitation, production) and use (distribution, storage, conversion, etc.).
INIS is operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in collaboration with 131 member countries and 24 International Organizations. France is member of the INIS international cooperation since its beginning and is represented by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA/Saclay).
The INIS – Nuclear Science and technology, energies and environment web-site is dedicated to the French higher educational and research institutions. Three search possibilities are proposed: simple, advanced and expert. The INIS content can also be browsed by key-words (vocabulary) and by subject categories (classification). The full-text of non-conventional documents (reports, dissertations, conferences..) is provided by the IAEA INIS web site, which hosts a unique repository of more than 520 000 documents publically available.
In 1969, the French Representation at the IAEA Board of Governors gave his official consent for the creation of INIS (International Nuclear Information System), very first international information system in the world on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. France is one of the founding members of this international cooperation which gathers together 131 countries and 24 International Organizations (154 members as a whole).
The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and more precisely the “Information Valorization Service” (UST/SVI) of CEA/Saclay Centre is responsible for organizing the collection of information and the preparation of French inputs for INIS. Each year, the CEA provides about 6000 new inputs to INIS, a third of which being attached to a full text document. In return of its contribution, France freely disposes of the entire content of the INIS database, and in particular of the foreign grey literature hardly accessible through other sources. INIS offers a unique access to the world nuclear literature and makes this heritage of unequaled richness available to all French users.
Since its creation, INIS remains the world’s leading information source for nuclear science and technology with today more than 4 million indexed records (all types combined) and a unique collection of grey literature documents in full text (reports, conferences, dissertations..) among which more than 520.000 are on free access. According to a Google Scholar estimation, more than a third of the documents referenced in INIS are not referenced elsewhere, and thus are unique to INIS.
Motivations
Since 2009, the INIS database is on free access on the IAEA web-site for all member countries of the INIS international cooperation. If the Google-type search interface of the IAEA site suits to the majority of users, it has some practical limitations such as the impossibility to perform “expert” searches and to obtain precise bibliometric data. For these reasons, the CEA approached the Inist-CNRS in order to realize an INIS database version that allows to benefit from the advanced functionalities of the powerful search engine of ElasticSearch. In agreement with IAEA, the INIS website access has been voluntarily restricted to the French higher educational and research institutions on demand, so as not to interfere with the existing free access interface of the IAEA-INIS website.
Content and target
The INIS (International Nuclear Information System) bibliographic database covers, since 1970, the World scientific and technical literature about all aspects of the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. From 1992, the economic and environmental aspects of all non-nuclear energy sources (fossil fuels, renewables, hydrogen) as well as their development (resources, exploitation, production) and uses (distribution, storage, conversion, etc.) are included in the INIS scope.
The main subjects covered by INIS are the following:
- Nuclear facilities, reactors, accelerators, fuel cycle, wastes ;
- Engineering, nuclear technologies, instrumentation and simulation ;
- Engineering, nuclear technologies, instrumentation and simulation ;
- Materials science, physical radiation effects, corrosion ;
- Nuclear safety and radiation protection ;
- Nuclear medicine, radiology, life sciences, biology ;
- Chemistry, radiochemistry, isotopic chemistry, physical chemistry, thermochemistry ;
- Environmental and Earth sciences in relation with nuclear and other energies ;
- Theoretical physics, particle physics, nuclear and radiation physics, atomic and molecular physics, plasma physics, thermonuclear fusion, condensed matter physics, astrophysics ;
- Legal and regulatory aspects, security, disarmament, fight against proliferation ;
- Knowledge management and preservation ;
- Economic and environmental aspects of non-nuclear energies (fossil fuels, renewables, hydrogen), energy and environmental policies, global warming and sustainable development ;
INIS targets the academic, research and industrial world. It is intended for researchers, engineers, students and information professionals.
Functionalities
The platform proposes to its users a trilingual interface (French, English, Spanish). All records are indexed with key-words from the English INIS Thesaurus. Most of the records include an English abstract and sometimes an additional abstract in the original language of the document.
Three search modes are featured: simple, advanced, expert. A search history and a search builder facilitate the formulation of complex queries.
The availability of the INIS Vocabulary and Subject Category scheme scheme allows to explore the INIS content using keywords and specific topics. It is also possible to perform new searches from record elements. Facets and filters complete the searching and browsing possibilities.
Services provided
The website provides the export of individual records in Bibtex, MODS extended, simple Dublin Core and RIS formats. For the RIS, an import in Endnote / Refworks is possible. A simple list of abridged records in text format is also available from the list of results.
The INIS Subject Categories classification, designed in SKOS, can be exported according to the subject categories, even globally or at different levels of detail, in RDF SKOS format.
Technical aspects
The “INIS – Nuclear Science and technology, energies and environment” site has been designed and realised by Inist-CNRS. It is supported by the “VIBAD” (Visualisation Indexation de Bases Documentaires : Visualising Indexing Documentation Databases) technical platform, fully configurable, conceived in connection with the ElasticSearch search engine.
The site is an adaptive website, consistent with the “responsive web design,” allowing easy reading and browsing on any type of medium.
Metadata are expressed in a “Metadata Object Description Schema” (MODS) format from the Library of Congress, adapted and extended by the Inist-CNRS to include metadata not listed in the format.
The “communication” part of the site relies on the WordPress CMS.