In the Open Access week, Dr. Girish Sahni (Director General CSIR, India), Chief Guest in the Sixteenth Foundation day celebrations of CSIR-URDIP on 24th October 2015, had launched Listing of Open Access DataBases (LOADB) – the listing of open access databases, a portal developed by CSIR URDIP showcasing the databases in multiple areas of science and technology that are available freely for public use. In his address, he lauded the work done by CSIR-URDIP and emphasized on the pivotal role the institution needs to play in aligning with the CSIR mandate of Science for Societal need.

LOADB is a service of CSIR’s Unit for Research and Development of Information Products (URDIP) located at Pune in India and is being developed for the Open Science and Open Innovation Infrastructure Project supported by CSIR at URDIP.

The objective of  LOADB is  to create a web-enabled, linked, classified and categorized collection of Open Access Databases which one can access from a single portal. Although initial focus is on science and technology subjects, the ultimate aim is to include all subject areas.