BioSystems Database

The NCBI folks have created another database, NCBI BioSystems, which is the aggregation of several public databases.  This database connects biosystem records with literature, molecular and chemical data from the Entrez system.  Biological pathways from KEGG nd BioCyc are currently included.  Links to this database are included in records from NCBI Gene, HomoloGene, OMIM and the Protein Clusers databases.  Get the full details on NCBI BioSystems here.

Federal Research Public Access Act

Step 1: Create a public access policy for NIH funded research.

Step 2: Create a public access policy for all government funded research.

Nice.  Good job NIH.  Looks like the other agencies want to come on board.  The Federal Research Public Access Act was introduced on June 25th.  This legislation would require that federal agencies with an extramural research budget of $100 million or more to institute a public access policy that would ask researchers to deposit a final manuscript of an accepted peer-reviewed article into a stable digital repository of choice that allows free, online access to readers no later than 6 months after publication in the journal, itself.

Get the details at The Alliance for Taxpayer Access.  ATA has all the necessary links for you to contact Congress and indicate your support.  While you’re at it, also tell them that you oppose Conyer’s H.R.801 Fair Copyright in Research Works Act which seeks to repeal the NIH Public Access policy (I know, what the hey?!!!).

Warning: Soapbox Rant (again)
C’mon.  Let’s continue to do the right thing here folks.  We have basic rights. Access to information is one of them.  To create a culture where only people with the right amount of money get to have information is ignorant and ultimately detrimental to society.  I’m a librarian and proud of it because we empower people through the fundamental right of information access so that they can educate themselves on their own terms.

It doesn’t take much to let your voice be heard.  Citizenship carries responsibility.  Be a part of the democracy we fought so hard to create.

Protein Interaction Networks

So I haven’t posted anything in awhile; sorry about that.  I do have a new book that may be of interest for you.  It is:

Protein interaction networks : computational analysis

The author is Aidong Zhang.  It is available at the Science Library on the 4th floor in the New Book area.  The call number is QP 551.5 .Z53 2009. 

The full Mirlyn record is here.  Or try looking at the entry in the new Mirlyn here.  By the way, the new Mirlyn is coming soon.  Give it a try.  You’ll like it MUCH better.  Trust me.

Cited By

A researcher asked me a question yesterday at the Medical Education poster session at Towsley Center regarding statistics for “cited by” searches.  In case you don’t know what a Cited By search is, these are searches where you determine how many times and by whom your work has been cited.  raditional Cited By searches are conducted using database tools such as Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) or Scopus (Elsevier).  However, as we all know, these resources are only available to those institutions that can afford these extremely expensive products.

Google Scholar (U of M proxy here) is an excellent alternative.  It’s available to the general public for free.  As well all know, this makes me very happy.  More importantly, if you are publishing in non-traditional methods like Open Access journals or to blogs, wikis, online only publications, then Google Scholar may be the only resource that is able to track who is citing you.

Google considers Google Scholar to be Beta, but hey, we know that Google’s beta is often better than anyone else’s production products. Have fun!

UM Extends Partnership with Google

First, as an aside, read more about Google’s logo today.  I know I’m behind because I didn’t know anything about the Doodle4Google project, but I think kids are pretty amazing.

Now, down to other business.  University of Michigan is extending its partnership with Google in regards to the digitization of books.  I know that there are a lot of conflicting views about this partnership in the first place.  I’ve talked about this issue in a previous posting.  It looks like the University Library gets more “stuff” out of this extended agreement including but not limited to:

• Authority to review institutional subscription pricing
• Sharing of public domain works for non-commercial purposes
• Sharing of public doman works for users with print disabilities

You can find more information about the amendment here.  Or if you’re the legal document type, you can read the amendment, itself.