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The United States' National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is a free online library for education and research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Program was established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2000 as a free online library which directs users to exemplary resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and research. NSDL provides an organized point of access to STEM content that is aggregated from a variety of other digital libraries, NSF-funded projects, publishers, and NSDL-reviewed web sites. NSDL also provides access to services and tools that enhance the use of this content in a variety of contexts. NSDL is designed primarily for K-16 educators, but anyone can access NSDL.org and search the library at no cost, although some content providers require a nominal fee or subscription to retrieve their specific resources.

Criticism

The mission of the NSDL is ''to provide organized access to high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels.'' This has meant two things: 1) creating and maintaining their own website (www.nsdl.org) and its assortment of content as well as supporting various other websites described as ''disciplinary and sector-based portals, called Pathways''. 2) Funding individual research projects aimed at helping researchers and educators make better use of online learning.

Advocates claim that the pay off of the program has been difficult to quantify. Thus far no evidence has been presented that NSDL has improved student learning. Supporters also admit that few few educators and researchers have even heard of NSDL let alone used or contributed to the project. Critics have indicated the programs has produced insufficient accomplishments relative to expenditures.

Budget

NSDL 2.0

In January 2007, NSDL released a new version of the library's main repository software. This new repository is built on top of the Fedora (software) middleware system, and provides a publicly documented API. In addition to supporting metadata records (catalog information) about library resources, the new repository supports arbitrary relationships among resources in the library. This allows for the creation of annotations and organizational structures within the library. The first application to make use of these new capabilities is Expert Voices. Further applications are in development, with the stated goal of creating both communities and context around the curated resources of the library.

Pathways

In addition to the main public library portal at NSDL.org, the library is accessible through a number of ''NSDL Pathways''. These are NSDL projects that provide audience-specific views of selected NSDL resources (these specialized views are also known as portals). Pathway audiences may be grouped by grade level, discipline, resource or data type, or some other designation.

The Pathway projects are organizations and institutions that have a history and expertise in serving a particular, frequently discipline-specific, target audience. Pathway partners select appropriate resources and user services and act as reference librarians for their communities. The specific NSDL Pathways include: