Factors driving the expansion of molecular biological and genetic information resources include the establishment and funding of national and international coordinating agencies, technological advances, and large-scale collaborative genetic mapping and sequencing programs. The 1998 annual database issue of Nucleic Acids Research contains descriptions of 102 databases, an increase of 36% from 1997. These resources include primary DNA and protein sequence databases, human and model organism genome sites, genetic mutation and variation databases, protein structural databases, visualization tools, molecular sequence database similarity search systems, gene and protein structure prediction servers, and pattern and motif identification tools. GenBank is only one of many hundreds of diverse molecular biological and genetics information resources available to researchers over the Internet. This growth has occurred in the context of the parallel expansion of the Internet and the nearly universal adoption of the Web as the medium for connectivity and database access. For example, GenBank, the public repository for DNA sequence information maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), has been doubling in size every fifteen to eighteen months, growing from 5,700 entries in 1985 to over three million sequence records with over two billion base pairs by 1998. Successful implementation of a library-based bioinformatics program requires both subject-specific and library and information technology expertise.īiomedical research now takes place in the context of an exploding information environment.
Centralizing such services in the library is a natural synergy of interests and enhances the provision of traditional library resources. Evaluation and usage statistics indicate that researchers, regardless of departmental affiliation or position, require support to access molecular biology and genetics resources. Bioinformatics clients are drawn from diverse departments and include clinical researchers in need of tools that are not readily available outside of basic sciences laboratories. Outcomes of this program include bioinformatics consultation services, library-based and graduate level courses, networking of sequence analysis tools, and a biological research Web site. A survey of laboratory research groups identified areas of greatest need and led to the development of a three-pronged program: consultation, education, and resource development. biologist to assess the molecular biological information needs of researchers and design strategies to enhance library resources and services. The University of Washington Health Sciences Libraries have been providing specialized services to this user community since 1995. Support for molecular biology researchers has been limited to traditional library resources and services in most academic health sciences libraries.
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