ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries July/August 1 9 9 6/431 Internet resources in biology By M artin P. C ourtois an d Alan H. Goslen From the Interactive Frog Dissection to Molecules R Us Scientists in all areas o f biology have em­braced the Internet. As a result, thousands o f sources are available including newsgroups and listservs, comprehensive and specialized databases, extensive guides to resources, and significant full-text works. While we can’t list all major biology Inter­ net resources in this short article, we will point out the best starting points and essential sources. As in other scientific disciplines, many signifi­ cant sites are developed by government agen­ cies and learned societies, although many sources are efforts o f commercial or university- based research labs. Biology encompasses many divisions and specializations and we had to b e restrictive in scope. Environmental studies are not included, although many sites listed here will be of inter­ est to environmental scientists. Similarly, agri­ culture, veterinary medicine, and plant and soil sciences are not covered, but are included in the WWW Virtual Library: Biosciences. G a t e w a y system s Standard Web search services (Lycos, Infoseek, Open Text, Yahoo!, etc.) yield many resources in the biological sciences. Sites listed below, however, are produced by biologists and focus on scholarly and research-oriented information. • P ed ro ’s BioM olecular R esearch Too An extensive list o f sources including molecu­ lar biology search and analysis tools, biblio­ graphic and text searches, guides and tutorials, l journals, and other biological resources. Access: h ttp :/ / w w w .p u b lic .ia s ta te .e d u / ~ p e d ro / research_tools. html. • WWW V irtu al L ib rary : B io scie n ce s. Comprehensive list o f biology resources, ar­ ranged by specific subject area, e.g., biochem­ istry, ecology, immunology, plant biology, etc. Access: http://golgi.harvard.edu/biopages.html. • CSU BIOWEB. Extensive, annotated list o f resources, arranged by specific field. The best starting point for students and others new to the field. Access: http://arnica.csustan.edu/. B iology listservs an d n ew sg ro u p s UseNet newsgroups play a major role in foster­ ing scholarly communication among biologists. There are two major newsgroup categories: bionet and the sci.bio. All bionet newsgroups and many sci.bio newsgroups are available through companion listservs. • B iology Netw ork News. An excellent overview and annotated list with links to major newsgroups. Access: http://nimsn41.nimr.mrc. ac.uk/links/news.html. • BlO SCI/bionet NewsGroups. Links to newsgroup archives and an FAQ section that includes a list o f current newsgroups and com ­ panion listservs. Access: http://www.bio.net/. Listservs More than 50 listservs were assessed by sub­ scribing and evaluating the frequency and con­ tent o f postings. The following lists contain active discourse on scholarly biology issues. s. • APPLIED-ETHOLOGY. Maintained by the International Society for Applied Etholo­ gists for discussion o f animal behavior. Access: applied-ethology-request@sask.usask.ca. M artin P. C ourtois is b io lo g ic a l s c ie n c e s re fe r e n c e lib r a r ia n in th e H od g es L ibrary a t th e University o f T ennessee, K n ox v ille ( UTK); e-m a il: m co u rto is@ u tk .ed u . A la n H. G oslen is r e fer en c e lib r a r ia n in th e P en d erg ra s s A gricu ltu re/V eterin ary M e d ic in e L ib rary a t UTK; e-m a il: g o slen @ u tk .ed u http://www.public.iastate.edu/~pedro/ http://golgi.harvard.edu/biopages.html http://arnica.csustan.edu/ http://nimsn41.nimr.mrc http://www.bio.net/ mailto:applied-ethology-request@sask.usask.ca mailto:mcourtois@utk.edu mailto:goslen@utk.edu 4 3 2 /C&RL News • BIOPI-L. List for high school biology teachers provides useful ideas about instruc­ tion techniques and materials for instructors at all levels. Access: LISTSERV@ KSUVM.KSU.EDU. • BIOSAFTY. Discussion on laboratory safety and other issues o f concern to safety per­ sonnel. Access: LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. • BIOTECH. Biotechnology discussion list covers techniques and requests for information about chemicals, biomaterials, and equipment. Access: LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU. • CONSBIO. Communication about con­ servation and ecology provides information about research and endangered site alerts. Ac­ cess: LISTPROC@U.WASHINGTON.EDU. • ECOLOG-L. Discussion list o f the Eco­ logical Society o f America. Postings include in­ formation about grants, jobs, conferences, and a full range o f e co lo g ica l to p ics. Access: LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU. • ENTOMO-L. In fo rm a tio n e x c h a n g e among entom ology researchers, instructors, and students. Access: LISTSERV@LISTSERV. UOGUELPH.CA. • ETHOLOGY. Discussion about animal b eh av io r and behav ioral ecology. Access: LISTSERV @ SEARN.SUNET.SE. • GENTALK. Forum for teachers and stu­ dents on genetics and biotechnology. Access: LISTSERV@USA.NET. • HERP-L. Addresses scientific study of her­ petology including ecology, behavior, system­ a t ic , and biogeography. Access: LISTPROC@ XTAL.HARVARD.EDU. • MAMMAL-L. C om m u nicatio n ab ou t m am m alian b io lo g y r e s e a r c h . A cces s: LISTSERV@SIVM.SI.EDU. • MORPHMET. Focuses on morphology, the study of the size and shape of organisms. Access: LISTSERV@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU. • PRIMATE-L. The Wisconsin Primate Re­ search Center’s list for researchers. Includes an­ nouncements, requests for assistance, and dis­ cussion o f research. Access: MAJORDOMO@ PRIMATE.WISC.EDU. • TAXACOM. Biological Systematics Dis­ cussion List covers classification of plants and animals with an emphasis on current proce­ dures and issues. Access: LISTSERV@CMSA. BERKELEY.EDU. Electronic journals With the rapid growth o f online journal pub­ lishing, it is impossible to provide an up-to- date list o f online journals. These sites, how­ ever, are well maintained and are good sources to check for the latest electronic journals. • BetaCyte List o f C hem istry Jo u rn a ls. Although its focus is chemistry and biochemis­ try journals, this site is a model journals page. Journals are categorized by the extent o f infor­ mation provided online, e.g., full-text/no fee, full-text/fee-based, some full-text articles, tables o f contents/abstracts, etc. Access: http://www. betacyte.pair.com/journals.html. • WWW Virtual Library: Jo u rn a ls, C on­ fe re n ce s, and C u rren t Aw areness. An ex­ tensive, up-to-date list of journals arranged by p u b lis h e r and title. A ccess: http://golgi. harvard.edu/journals.html. • P e d r o ’s B i o m o l e c u l a r R e s e a r c h Tools— B io/Chem ical Jo u rn als and Newslet­ te rs. Comprehensive guide to more than 200 journal tables of contents/abstracts. Indicates journals with full-text articles online. Access: http://w w w .public.iastate.edu/~pedro/rt_ journals.html. B iology resources The following resources, arranged by subject area, are prominent sites o f interest to many biologists. • National Biological Service (NBS). In­ formation about NBS programs with links to NBS research stations and databases. The Na­ tional Biological Information Infrastructure ini­ tiative to provide access to national, state, lo­ cal, and private biological databases is of particular interest. Access: http://www.nbs.gov. • T h e S m ith s o n ia n N a tu ra l H is to ry W eb. Provides information about research pro­ grams at the National Museum of Natural His­ tory and links to data and graphics files from the Smithsonian’s specimen collections. Access: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/. • University o f C alifornia Paleon tology M useum. Includes outstanding guides to the museum’s collections and offers an extensive set o f links to other specimen collections. Ac­ cess: http://ucmp1.berkeley.edu/. • B io d iv ersity an d B io lo g ical C o llec­ tio n s W ebserver. A guide to sources in sys­ tematics and organism-based biology. Focuses on specimen collections, taxonomic authority files, and reports of standards bodies. Access: http://muse.bio.cornell.edu/. B o tany • T he In te rn e t D ire cto ry f o r B o tan y. Searchable and browsable index of botany re­ mailto:LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU mailto:LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU mailto:LISTPROC@U.WASHINGTON.EDU mailto:LISTSERV@UMDD.UMD.EDU mailto:LISTSERV@USA.NET mailto:LISTSERV@SIVM.SI.EDU mailto:LISTSERV@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU http://www http://golgi http://www.public.iastate.edu/~pedro/rt_ http://www.nbs.gov http://www.nmnh.si.edu/ http://ucmpl http://muse.bio.comell.edu/ July/August 19 9 6 /4 3 3 sources; a product of international collabora­ tion among Canadian, Finnish, and U.S. bota­ nists. Includes alphabetical and subject indexes. Access: http://meena.cc.uregina.ca/~liushus/ bio/idb.html. • A m erican A sso ciatio n o f B o ta n ica l Gardens an d Arboreta. Links to member in­ stitutions which include most major U.S. and some foreign botanical gardens. Includes links to other sites of botanical interest. Access: http: / /www.mobot.org/AABGA/welcome.html. • Flora o f N orth Am erica. A collabora­ tive project to compile comprehensive descrip­ tions o f plants growing in the U.S., Canada, and Greenland. The first two volumes o f a pro­ posed 14-volume set are available online. A c­ cess: http://straylight.tamu.edu/fna/fna.html. • Plants National Database. Produced by the National Plant Data Center of the U.S. D e­ partment of Agriculture, this database includes common and scientific names, economic im­ portance, growth habits, links to a distribution map, and references to the literature. Access: http://trident.ftc.nrcs.usda.gov/plants. Ecology • Ecology WWW page. Includes a broad view o f ecology and resources from many life science areas. Sites are listed by title and are searchable by keyword (title and URL). Access: h ttp :/ / b io m s e r v .u n iv -ly o n 1 .fr/ E c o lo g y - WWW.html. North American mirror at http:// meena.cc.uregina.ca/~liushus/bio/ecology.html. • Biodiversity, Ecology, and the Envi­ ro n m e n t. Good starting point for W eb re­ sources. Includes a comprehensive list o f bio­ logical journals available online. Access: http: //golgi.harvard.edu/biopages/biodiversity.html. • L o n g - T e r m E c o l o g i c a l R e s e a r c h (LTER) P rog ram . Established by the National Science Foundation to support research on long­ term ecological phenomena in the U.S. Includes links to 18 LTER sites as well as a searchable bibliography of research at LTER sites. Access: http://lternet.washington.edu/. G enetics an d m olecular biology The Human Genome Project and other genet­ ics research is computer-intensive and led to the development of comprehensive and sophis­ ticated Web resources. While the basic science behind these sources can be intimidating, the “Primer on Molecular Genetics” and the help screens at Entrez provide excellent introduc­ tions for the nonbiologist. • The NCBI WWW Entrez B row ser. In­ tegrates many protein and DNA sequence da­ tabases (GenBank, EMBL, DDJB) into one easy- to-use format. Includes more than one million Medline records as well as BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) searches and 3-D views o f structures. Access: http://www3.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/Entrez/. • NIH M olecular Modeling H om e Page. Provides links to and short descriptions of ser­ vices that give 3-D views of molecules. Access: h ttp :/ / cm m .in fo .n ih .g o v / m o d e lin g / n e t_ services.html. • M olecules R US. This site provides a forms interface to search and retrieve molecu­ lar structure data from the Brookhaven Protein Data Bank. Using viewer programs such as RasMol, Mage, and Raster3d, protein structures can be viewed and manipulated in a variety of formats. Links to retrieve viewer software are provided. Access: http://molbio.info.nih.gov/ cgi-bin/pdb. • J a c k s o n L a b o r a to ry WWW S e rv e r. Jackson Lab maintains the Mouse Genome Da­ tabase and the Encyclopedia of the Mouse Ge­ nome, sources of comprehensive current in­ formation on mouse genetics including data on mouse loci, experimental genetic mapping data, probes and PCR primers, polymorphisms, no­ menclature, and associated bibliographic ref­ erences. Access: http://www.jax.org/. • Online Mendelian In h eritance in Man (OMIM). OMIM is the continuously updated, fu ll-text, s ea rch a b le v ersion o f V icto r A. McKusick’s M endelian Inheritance in Man, a comprehensive encyclopedia o f human genes and g e n e t ic d is o rd e rs . A ccess: http:// www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim/. • C om putational M olecular Biology at NIH. Major sequence- and text-based databases, analytical tools, lab protocols, and important reference sources in molecular biology. Access: http ://molbio.info.nih.gov/molbio/. • P rim er o n M olecular Genetics. A good introduction to basic genetics and biocomputing for the nonspecialist. Includes an extensive glos­ sary. Access: http://www.gdb.org/Dan/DOE/ intro.html. M icrobiology • EcoCyc: Encyclopedia o f E. co li Genes an d M etabolism. Comprehensive encyclope­ dia describing the genetics and metabolism of the bacterium E. coli. Information is provided primarily in a graphical interactive format. Avail­ http://meena.cc.uregina.ca/~liushus/ http://straylight http://trident http://biomserv.univ-lyonl.fr/Ecology- http://WWW.html http://lternet.washington.edu/ http://www3.ncbi.nlm http://cmm.info.nih.gov/modeling/net_ http://molbio.info.nih.gov/ http://www.jax.org/ http://www.gdb.org/Dan/DOE/ 43 4 /C&RL News July/August 1 9 9 6 /4 3 5 able through a Web server, but should be down­ loaded and run locally for best results. Access: http://www.ai.sri.com/ecocyc/ecocyc.html. • All th e V irology o n th e WWW. Pro­ duced by the Garry Lab at Tulane University, this is an excellent list o f virus-related sources on the Web. Includes tutorials, pointers to other virology sites, publications from the lab, etc. Access: http://www.tulane.edu/~dmsander/ garryfavweb.html. • M ic r o b i a l S t r a i n D a ta N e tw o rk (MSDN). A well-organized page that provides links to culture catalogs, collections, and other sources on viruses, bacteria, fungi, yeasts, etc. Access: http://www.bdt.org.br/bdt/msdn/. • A m erican Society fo r M icrobiology. An extensive, nonannotated list o f links to re­ sources in microbiology, as well as informa­ tion about products, services, and business of the society. Access: http://www.asmusa.org/. Zoology • Z o o lo g y o n th e I n te r n e t (Z o o lo g y R ecord ). Maintained by BIOSIS; organized by topic and by animal group. Access: http:// w w w .y o r k .b io s is .o r g / z r d o c s / z o o lin fo / zoolinfo.htm. • E n to m o lo g y In d e x o f I n te r n e t R e­ sou rces. Collaborative effort among research­ ers at Colorado State University and Iowa State University. This searchable database can be browsed by subject categories. Access: http:// www.ent.iastate.edu/List/defaultN.html. • H e r p e to lo g y (B io s c i e n c e s ) . World Wide Web Virtual Library index of herpetol­ ogy. Contains a directory of herpetological sites for classification, meetings, organizations, jour­ nals, universities, museums, and other topics of interest. Access: http://xtal200.harvard.edu: 8000/herp/. Education resources • P roject BIO. Joint project among Iowa State University and community colleges, high schools, and industries to develop and share biology education resources. Major efforts in­ clude developing online biology courses and sharing curriculum materials. Access: http:// b i o t e c h .z o o l .i a s t a t e .e d u / P r o je c t _ B i o / Homepage.html. • BioEd: Biological Sciences Education R esources. Comprehensive list of education resources for college-level biology. Access: http://www- hpcc.astro.washington.edu/scied/ bio.html. • A c c e s s E x c e l l e n c e . S p o n so re d by Genentech; designed to provide information for high school biology teachers and enable ex­ change o f lesson plans and techniques. The “Resource” section contains an excellent selec­ tion of educational links of benefit to college and university instructors. A ccess: http:// www.gene.com/ae/. • T h e MIT B io lo g y H y p e r t e x tb o o k . Hypertextbook designed for the MIT Introduc­ tory Biology course contains a syllabus, chap­ ters on basic college biology, a searchable in­ dex, self quizzes, and practice problems. Access: http://esg-www.mit.edu:8001/bio/. • T he In teractive F ro g D issection. An online tutorial with step-by-step instructions and pictures o f a frog dissection. Access: http:// curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU/go/frog/. • B io lo g y E d u c a tio n S o ftw a re FAQ. Maintained by the Biology Education Software Taskforce (B.E.S.T.) at the University of Wash­ ington, this site contains reviews o f selected biology education software. Each review con­ tains a description, short review, and a section on source and pricing. Access: http://www. zoology.washington.edu/biosoft/. • W hole Frog Project. Uses high-resolu­ tion MRI imaging and other techniques to visu­ alize anatomical structures. Includes MPEG and Quicktime movies of a rotating, transparent frog. Access: http://george.lbl.gov/ITG.hm.pg.docs/ Whole.Frog/Whole.Frog.html#intro. • UTK M athem atical Life Sciences Ar­ chives WWW Server Hom e Page. Contains reviews of mathematical and educational soft­ ware for life sciences. Shareware programs may b e d o w n lo a d e d d irectly . 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