NOSI (Naval Open Source Intelligence) is a digital library of world naval operational news curated from open source intelligence. Links to naval operational news stories are posted daily after scanning over 100 international news sources.

The patron saint of NOSI is Fred T. Jane, who legitimized and popularized the concept of open source intelligence in 1898 with his publication of the first edition of Janes’ Fighting Ships. Jane discovered early on that enlisted men and lower ranking officers were his best sources of information; that they, and not technology were the true heart of any Navy; and he subsequently became a champion for issues affecting their quality-of-life at sea and ashore. Jane felt that a country’s citizens needed to appreciate that a strong Navy was key to a country’s well-being and survival, and the way to develop such an appreciation was through their continuing education on naval matters. Janes’ beliefs are as true today as they were over 100 years ago, and NOSI is therefore dedicated to arming citizens with naval knowledge so they can make intelligent decisions as to what role a navy should play in their society. Jane also believed that military professionals needed to be as well educated as possible, and NOSI is therefore also intended to serve as a source of continuing education on naval and military affairs for military professionals.

I believe in one of the fundamental tenets of war studies – that one should not only see war within the context of war, but that one should understand war really arises within the context of everything else – an everything else that should not be ignored. Therefore, these non-naval background stories are intended to provide some of that context.

Yes, please feel free to link to NOSI and to publicize it.

Usually just after midnight, Greenwich Mean Time.

To read news stories from previous months and years, use the calendar in the upper right hand corner of the home page or you may use the Archive.

Many of the newspaper Web sites whose articles NOSI links to allow free online access to these articles for a limited number of days. After that, the articles are moved to an archive which charges for accessing each article. Whenever possible, NOSI links to Web sites with versions of these articles which remain freely available indefinitely, such as BBC News. Therefore, in order to read all the stories NOSI links to, you will have to visit NOSI daily, before the newspapers move their articles to their archives.

You have three options:

1. Go to the Internet Archive and type the Web address (URL) of the article into its WayBack Machine search engine and see if it has an archived copy.

2. Go to Google and type the title of the article, in quotes, into its Web search engine. Someone may have placed a copy of the original article onto their personal Web site.

3. Finally, go to the newspaper’s Web site and search through its archive. You must likely will have to pay to retrieve the article.

Yes, our RSS feed may be found at: feed://www.nosi.org/feed/

NOSI is curated by Michael P. D’Alessandro, M.D. Dr. D’Alessandro received a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Biology from Wayne State University in 1985, received an M.D. from Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1989, completed a residency in Diagnostic Radiology in 1993 at the University of Iowa, completed a fellowship in Pediatric Radiology in 1995 at Children’s Hospital Boston / Harvard Medical School, and is currently a Pediatric Radiologist and Professor of Radiology at The University of Iowa.

Dr. D’Alessandro’s research is in the field of digital libraries; he established the Virtual Hospital digital health sciences library as the 250th Web site on the Internet in 1993. In 1996 the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery commissioned the Virtual Naval Hospital digital health sciences library from his research laboratory to deliver authoritative health information to naval health care providers and their patients in isolated operational settings. It was used from 1997 – 2005 by U.S. Navy primary care providers around the world – at sea, under the sea, and in the field. He is currently digital-librarian-in-chief of several digital libraries.

Dr. D’Alessandro has only a limited amount of time to curate NOSI each day and this precludes his ability to monitor Comments if they were turned on. Individuals who wish to partake in discussions regarding naval affairs are directed to the Usenet newsgroup sci.military.naval.

2000 – 18,205 pages read (page hits) from 8,612 users (visitors). There were 6 links to the home page.

2001 – 92,436 pages read (page hits) from 39,079 users (visitors). There were 36 links to the home page.

2002 – 175,462 pages read (page hits) from 67,242 users (visitors). There were 87 links to the home page.

2003 – 209,699 pages read (page hits) from 90,017 users (visitors). There were 89 links to the home page.

2004 – 209,986 pages read (page hits) from 115,315 users (visitors). There were 54 links to the home page.

2005 – 254,437 pages read (page hits) from 136,797 users (visitors). There were 82 links to the home page.

2006 – 216,179 pages read (page hits) from 119,473 users (visitors).

2007 – 177,202 pages read (page hits) from 106,546 users (visitors).

2008 – 189,995 pages read (page hits) from 115,850 users (visitors).

2009 – 194,560 pages read (page hits) from 122,852 users (visitors).

Click here to see our statistics.

In some ways, NOSI may be considered to be a spirtual heir to the Naval Chronicle: The Contemporary Record of the Royal Navy at War 1793 – 1819.

The preface to the first volume of The Naval Chronicle issued in 1799 sets out the aims of the editors:

“The leading objects of this publication are, to do good, and to give pain to no one, to render justice unto those who deserve praise, and have experienced neglect; to cheer the uniformity of which the mariner so constantly complains, and to render him sensible of the sources from whence much amusement and instruction may be observed; and also to enable the public to form a more correct and enlarged idea of that profession, by whose exertions Great Britain stands pre-eminent in the scale of political importance.”

I would like to think that NOSI, 200 years later, has essentially the same aims.