History

For many years, several countries had bilateral partnerships for sharing energy research and technology information. In the mid-1980s, many of these countries and others began to recognize the need for cooperation in a more cost-effective manner by developing a common information-sharing system. As a result, the Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDE) was created in 1987 under the auspices of the International Energy Agency (IEA). ETDE's founding members were Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Highlights from each year are given below.

1987

The original Implementing Agreement for ETDE is signed on 26 January 1987 with the objectives of broadening the exchange of energy information, improving compatibility among existing databases, and further developing the basis for decision making on energy research and development (R&D).
Italy becomes the 12th member in October.
ETDE creates the Energy Database to cover fossil fuels, renewable energy, nuclear energy, fusion energy, energy storage and conversion, end use technology, advanced energy systems, and energy policy. The database begins with nearly 2 million records of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) retrospective files (1974-1986).
More than 165,000 new records are added to the database.
The Operating Agent, U.S. DOE's Office of Scientific and Technical Information, selects Charles Stuber as Operating Agent Representative.
Members elect Alan Heyes, U.K., to serve as ETDE chair and Kurt Bürk, Germany, to serve as vice chair.
ETDE's Executive Committee (ExCo) holds its first meeting in March in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. Delegates hold 2nd ExCo meeting in September in Paris, France.
The Technical Working Group (TWG) meets for the first time in July in Karlsruhe, Germany.

1988

ETDE's TWG reviews the non nuclear scope of database, and ETDE implements their recommendations for improvement.
Members adopt the format used by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) International Nuclear Information System (INIS), with minor modifications, as the basis for exchange of bibliographic records. Implementation begins in 1989. . Dora Moneyhun assumes responsibilities of Operating Agent Representative in May.
Delegates hold 3rd ExCo meeting in April in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and 4th ExCo meeting in October in Paris, France.

1989

In January, France signs the Implementing Agreement to become the 13th member.
In October, Switzerland signs the Implementing Agreement as the 14th member.
IEA and Executive Committee approve extending the ETDE Implementing Agreement for 3 more years.
Operating Agent implements a quality assurance program and records processing system including procedures for updating ETDE Authorities and maximizing computerized checking of input.
ETDE approves observer status for INIS at Executive Committee meetings.
Operating Agent contacts other IEA organizations -- IEA Coal Research, CADDET, Heat Pump Centre, and Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre -- to promote better integration of products and services.
In April, the ExCo and TWG meet in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Delegates hold 6th ExCo meeting in October in London, United Kingdom.

1990

ETDE and INIS jointly sponsor and publish a subject indexing study as a result of a meeting of database producers.
ETDE and INIS form joint ad hoc working groups on such topics as common set of rules, authorities, and procedures for the two agencies.
Operating Agent distributes the ETDE Procedures Manual as a quality control tool and reference for members.
After reelection, Alan Heyes, U.K., and Kurt Bürk, Germany, continue as ETDE chair and vice chair.
In April, delegates hold 7th ExCo meeting in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and 3rd TWG meeting in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Delegates hold 8th ExCo meeting in October in Tokyo, Japan.

1991

User survey conducted by Dialog and STN shows that 90% of ETDE's Energy Database users are satisfied with the database.
As a result of evaluation of global climate change portions of the database, ETDE decides to acquire literature on this topic which has been published outside member states.
In April, delegates hold 9th ExCo meeting in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and 4th TWG meeting in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In September, the 10th ExCo and 5th TWG meet in Karlsruhe, Germany.

1992

IEA approves associate membership option for all IEA agreements.
ETDE's Energy Database becomes available on CD ROM.
IEA Committee on Energy Research and Technology (CERT) completes external evaluation of ETDE.
Number of records in Energy Database exceeds 3 million, including more than 1 million new records added since ETDE was formed in 1987.
Members agree to begin holding one ExCo meeting per year beginning in 1994 and to hold the TWG meetings separately from the ExCo meetings.
The ExCo approves the fourth objective for ETDE, to support IEA's strategic priorities regarding energy technology and R&D collaboration.
In April, the 11th ExCo and 6thTWG meet in Helsinki, Finland. In October, the 12th ExCo and 7thTWG meet in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

1993

IEA and Executive Committee approve renewal of the ETDE Implementing Agreement and extend the operating period from 3 years to 5 years.
The Republic of Korea becomes the first associate member of ETDE in November.
ETDE interacts with IEA GREENTIE and IEA International Centre for Gas Technology Information to increase cooperation with other IEA programmes.
ETDE begins accepting input of records over the Internet.
Some members begin to use FIBRE, a software package developed by INIS, to facilitate formatting and quality checking of bibliographic records.
Jacques Ferron, Canada, becomes ETDE chair and Dagmar Marek, Germany, becomes vice chair.
Delegates meet in Rome, Italy, in April for the 13th ExCo meeting and in Ottawa, Canada, in October for the 14th ExCo meeting. In November, the 8th TWG meets in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

1994

Poland joins ETDE as an associate member in March.
Brazil joins as an associate member in November, bringing ETDE to a total of 17 members.
ETDE and IAEA/INIS sign Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the two organizations.
In May, delegates hold the 15th ExCo meeting in Cernay-la-Ville, France. In September, delegates hold the 9th TWG meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee.

1995

Australia becomes the 18th member of ETDE in February.
The Operating Agent co hosts an IEA Information Centres meeting in Washington, D.C., in March.
ETDE and INIS hold their first Joint Technical Committee (JTC) meeting in October in Vienna, Austria, in conjunction with the 10th TWG meeting.
ETDE home page on the World Wide Web debuts in October: http://www.etde.org/.
The TWG establishes a listserver to facilitate communication among members.
Debbie Cutler becomes Operating Agent Representative.
In May, delegates hold 16th ExCo meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1996

In March, Belgium joins as the 19th ETDE member.
In June, delegates hold 17th ExCo meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.
After reelection, Jacques Ferron, Canada, and Dagmar Marek, Germany, continue as chair and vice chair of ETDE.
ETDE and INIS hold their second JTC meeting in October in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, prior to the 11th TWG meeting.
ETDE's Energy Database contains more than 3.5 million records.

1997

Delegates meet in Sydney, Australia, in April for the 18th ExCo.
In April, Jacques Ferron, Canada, retires and David Irving, U.K. is elected ETDE chair.
The Executive Committee decides to have both a strategic plan and an operational plan.
ETDE attends the 3rd meeting of IEA Information Centres in Washington, D.C. in May.
The IEA hosts a workshop between the European Commission and IEA Information Centers in June in Belgium and ETDE attends.
Mexico becomes the 20th ETDE member in July.
As part of the 10th anniversary celebration, ETDE holds a contest to rename the database. The timeframe of the contest extended from August through December.
In November, the 12th TWG and 3rd JTC meetings are held in Vienna, Austria.
In December, the IEA renews and extends ETDE's Implementing Agreement through September 2003, aligning the end date with ETDE's fiscal year.

1998

The 19th meeting of the ExCo is held in Madrid, Spain, in April.
ETDE adds a new general vice chair position in April and Mac Nason, Canada, is elected. Dagmar Marek, Germany, was re-elected as technical vice chair and TWG chair.
In April, members agree to drop direct coverage of patents and rely on an expanded version of the discussion and results rather than in-depth minutes as a record of the meeting.
Representatives from IEA EETIC meet with the OA in June in Oak Ridge and a representative from IEA Coal Research visits in September.
ETDE issues a tender for a Web version of the database in July and receives bids from Germany, The Netherlands, and the U.S.
In July, SilverPlatter announces they are discontinuing The ETDE Energy Database CD-ROM.
Australia withdraws from ETDE in September after losing government funding for participation.
ETDE's Chair and OA Representative participate in an IEA End Use Working Party workshop on effective international information programs in September in London.
The OA hosts the 13th TWG and 4th JTC meetings in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in October.
In November, the Executive Committee establishes the ETDEEXCO mailing list to facilitate communications among members and the IEA Desk Officer.

1999

In January, delegates meet in extraordinary session in Paris for the 20th ExCo meeting to select a vendor for the Web product. The U.S. proposal was accepted.
Delegates meet in Oslo, Norway, in June for the 21st ExCo.
In June, Mac Nason, Canada, retires and Birgit Pedersen, Denmark, becomes ETDE's general vice chair.
A simplified subject category scheme is adopted in June and subject areas are reprioritized as core and non-core areas.
Poland withdraws from ETDE in June after losing government funding for participation.
ETDE approves a formal strategic plan for the period 1999-2003 in July.
ETDE and INIS hold their 5th Joint Technical Committee (JTC) meeting in October in Oak Ridge, USA, in conjunction with the 14th TWG meeting.
ETDE World Energy Base (ETDEWEB) is launched in November by IEA Executive Director Robert Priddle: http://www.etde.org/etdeweb/ in Paris, with the Chair and OA in supporting roles.
ETDE's chair meets with the EETIC chair in London in November to discuss possible joint projects.

2000

In May, delegates hold the 22nd ExCo meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
David Irving, UK, and Dagmar Marek, Germany, are re-elected as ETDE chair and vice chair.
A new concept for regional membership in the Exchange originates to enhance membership growth.
ETDE's Energy Database on Dialog and STN contains nearly four million records.
ETDE and INIS hold the 6th JTC meeting and ETDE holds its 15th TWG meeting in Vienna, Austria, in October.
Members begin using the new simplified subject category scheme developed jointly with INIS.
The thesaurus reconciliation project with INIS is considered a success, and a joint reference series (INIS/ETDE) is established.

2001

In April, ETDEWEB is enhanced to include relevancy sorting, improved date range searching, an option for obtaining the number of hits for a query, and hyperlinks for URL's in the availability field.
In May, delegates hold 23rd ExCo meeting on Cheju Island, Republic of Korea.
ETDE's Chair and Operating Agent visit Portugal in June to promote membership and also attend a CERT CIP Strategy Task Force meeting in Lisbon.
Germany's Dagmar Marek, who served ETDE as Vice Chair since 1993, retires during the summer. Christa Brûlet, France, succeeds Ms. Marek as the chair of the TWG (and as a Vice Chair of ETDE).
ETDE holds its 16th TWG meeting via email due to world events and travel complications.
ETDE's Executive Committee forms a “Think Tank” Subgroup to explore possibilities for information retrieval and international cooperation in the energy sector over the next three to five years.
Energy Information Sources is made available from ETDEWEB providing links to relevant energy Web resources.
In December, ETDE and INIS hold the 7th JTC meeting in Vienna, Austria with some members attending through video conference due to travel complications.

2002

In June, delegates hold the 24th ExCo meeting in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.
ETDE and INIS hold the 8th JTC meeting and ETDE holds its 17th TWG meeting in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, USA, during the last week of October.
ETDE conducts an ETDEWEB user survey that finds 98% of the respondents are satisfied with the database.
The Executive Committee agrees to convert ETDEWEB to Dublin Core format.
ETDE's Chair and the Operating Agent attend an IEA Information Centres meeting in Paris.
Mexico continues efforts in Latin America toward development of a regional membership concept.
Executive Committee members participate in a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) exercise to help focus the next strategic planning process.
The first joint INIS/ETDE thesaurus is printed in two volumes.

2003

In May, delegates hold the 25th ExCo meeting in Montreux, Switzerland.
ETDE members re-elect Chair David Irving, of the U.K, and elect Margaret Ahearn, Canada, as vice chair and Hillebrand Verkroost, The Netherlands, as technical vice chair and TWG chair.
A key policy decision is reached on allowing many developing countries access to ETDE's database information.
Members adopt a new strategic plan for ETDE for 2003-2008 and agree to new Objectives: to compile and maintain a shared database on information related to energy research and technology; to disseminate information related to energy research and technology; to explore, and where appropriate develop, other ways of collecting and disseminating information related to energy research and technology; and to support the work of the International Energy Agency.
Members agree to raise the basic contribution fee for ETDE membership from $10,000 to $15,000 annually.
As cost saving measures, members agree to provide the Operating Agent with electronic copies of full text rather than paper and cease ETDE's newsletter, ETDE Update.
In June, the IEA renews and extends ETDE's Implementing Agreement through September 2008.
Belgium and Japan withdraw from ETDE in September after losing government funding for participation.
ETDE and INIS hold their 9th Joint Technical Committee (JTC) meeting in October in Vienna, Austria in conjunction with the 18th TWG meeting in October.
ETDEWEB is enhanced by the addition of the pre-1995 information. By the end of calendar year 2003, over 3,110,000 records are available to users, tripling the amount of information previously available. Over 104,000 electronic full text documents are directly available.

2004

ETDE becomes an affiliate member of CrossRef in February, retrieving over 220,000 DOI's for journal articles. These are made available in ETDEWEB records as hyperlinks (over 250,000 by year end).
Beginning in April, ETDEWEB access is provided to 37 developing countries [Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cameroon, Congo (Dem. Rep.), Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Paraguay, Philippines, Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, Rep., Zambia] in support of the G8 Energy Ministers' efforts to push energy technologies to the developing world.
In May, delegates hold the 26th ExCo meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
To help cut costs, ExCo members decide to reduce TWG meetings to every 2 years, beginning with the 2004 meeting in the U.S.
Members agree to amend the Implementing Agreement to accommodate the IEA's new Framework for Implementing Agreements, which replaced the Guiding Principles document.
In the August/September timeframe, ETDEWEB access is provided to five more countries, Bulgaria, Egypt, Pakistan, Romania, and Ukraine as part of ETDE's initiative to provide access to developing countries.
ETDEWEB is enhanced to allow selection and printing of citations and fast-web viewing for PDF's.
The ETDE OA provides a display at the INIS International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management held in Saclay, France in September.
Italy withdraws from ETDE in September after losing government funding for participation.
ETDE and INIS hold their 10th Joint Technical Committee (JTC) meeting in October in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, in conjunction with the 19th TWG meeting.
Over 111,000 full text documents and over 3.4 million bibliographic records are available on ETDEWEB.

2005

In March, Portugal joins as the 16th ETDE member.
Beginning in April, Burkina Faso, Macedonia, FYR, and Tunisia are added to the list of developing countries eligible for ETDEWEB access.
In May, delegates hold the 27th ExCo meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
David Irving, U.K., retires, and Brian Hitson, U.S., is elected ETDE Chair to complete the remaining term.
ExCo members decide to replace the Energy Information Sources with other options such as adding records to the database for relevant websites and distributed searching options.
ETDE conducts an ETDEWEB user survey and finds that 98% of the respondents remain satisfied with ETDEWEB.
Members agree to make the ETDE Annual Report a calendar year report rather than a fiscal year report.
ETDE begins a pilot project to purchase journal records from Elsevier and add them to the Energy Database after enhancement by members.
Distributed Searching debuts as part of ETDEWEB in November 2005.
ETDE members concur in December to continue the Elsevier project into 2006.
Over 304,000 DOI's are available on ETDEWEB.
Over 141,000 direct full text documents and over 3.6 million bibliographic records are available on ETDEWEB.

2006

In January, a new version of ETDEWEB debuts, with additional features such as alerts.
Also in January, the new look for the ETDE website is implemented, with a revised layout and features.
Members meet in Karlsruhe, Germany on 30 May through 1 June for the 28th ExCo meeting.
During the ExCo meeting, Brian Hitson, U.S., is re-elected as Chair. Jaime Pontigo, Mexico, is elected Vice-Chair, and Silke Rehme, Germany, is elected Vice-Chair and TWG Chair.
ETDE Chair and several members participate in meetings and discussions in Brussels, Belgium with the European Commission's Ad Hoc Working Group and Expert Group on Energy RTD Information Systems in Europe.
ETDE holds its 20th TWG meeting in October in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States.

2007

ETDE celebrates its 20th anniversary!
ETDE is invited to participate in the IEA NEET Workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa in February.
ETDE makes invited presentation to international seminar, “Scientific and Technological Innovation: National Experience and International Co-operation,” organized by the International Centre for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) and UNIDO 29 May 2007 in Vienna, Austria.
In June, ETDEWEB is enhanced with several new features including highlighted search terms and options for going to next and previous records from the bibliographic record displays.
The 29th ExCo meeting is held in Lisbon, Portugal, 2 – 4 July. South African observers attend.
On July 5, ETDE and the Portuguese National Institute for Engineering, Technology and Innovation (INETI) jointly host a public International conference in Lisbon, Portugal for Advancing Energy Science and Technology through Multilateral Information Exchange.
Over 553,000 DOI’s are available on ETDEWEB.
Over 184,000 direct full text documents and over 3.8 million bibliographic records are available on ETDEWEB.

Go to Top