Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bionet!LANL.GOV!pgil%histone
From: pgil%histone@LANL.GOV (Paul Gilna)
Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genbank
Subject: Re: accession no. won't return sequence
Message-ID: <9010151438.AA02404@histone.lanl.gov>
Date: 15 Oct 90 14:38:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@genbank.bio.net
Lines: 26



Frequently, an author will request that the sequence be held
confidential until publication. This means that although we have the
sequence in hand we cannot release the data until we "spot" the
appeareance of these data in a journal, at which point we are free to
release them. With every submission of this ilk, we strongly encourage
authors to inform us of the impending date of publication so that we
can have the data out in time, but few respond in this manner.

To someone who spots an accession number that cannot be retrieved, I
would request that you do us all a service and inform GenBank directly
(mail to genbank%life@lanl.gov); we can get the annotated data out and
on the servers within 24 hours as soon as we know that the data have
been published.

There is no doubt in my mind that the necessity of holding onto data
seriously hampers our ability to have those data on-line, at the time
of publication. We in fact have pondered a great deal over just this
topic and are working on a number of solutions that hopefully should
lead the way in the whole issue of timely release of data. In the
interim (and indeed beyond) I would reiterate my request to the
community to help us out.

Paul Gilna
GenBank, Los Alamos.