Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!rob!elliston
From: elliston@rob.UUCP ( Keith Elliston)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: BIO-JOURNALS newsgroup
Summary: good suggestion.... what format??
Message-ID: <352@rob.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 89 20:29:26 GMT
References: <8904111128.AA22235@net.bio.net>
Organization: MSDRL, Merck & Co.,Inc., Rahway, NJ
Lines: 38

In article <8904111128.AA22235@net.bio.net>, WMBORMON@hlerul52.bitnet writes:
> The organization of a BIO-JOURNALS newsgroup is an excellent idea,
> but it will of real help only if the various journal contents will
> be organized in the same format. As of now, there are as many formats
> as there are journals who are willing to participate in this project.
> You can't have software for each of them individually.
> But otherwise, a laudable initiative.

This is a very good point.  What format are we going to adopt for these         
contents?  I think that my favorite is the EMBL-like form, where each line of
each entry  is preceded by a 2 letter field identifier.  It is rather primitive
but it allows everyone to easily write a little parser to convert it to whatever
format they are using.  In fact, someone could volunteer to write a little    
for this type of conversion.

Another point...  what should we request as far as info included in the toc's?
I suggest that we try to get the journals to include the abstracts if at all 
possible.  That would make searching them a whole lot easier.  I think that
this wouldnt be a whole lot of extra work for the contributors, as they must
have this stuff stored electronically anyway.


> 
> Hans van Ormondt
> Sylvius Laboratory
> Leiden, NL.
> WMBORMOND@HLERUL52.BITNET

-Keith Elliston

===============================================================================
Keith O. Elliston                        |  Usenet:  uunet!rob!elliston 
Senior Information Scientist             |  Arpanet: rob!elliston@uunet.uu.net 
Merck Sharp & Dohme Res. Lab.            |  Bitnet:  elliston%rob.uucp@psuvax1
Rahway, NJ  07065  U.S.A.                |   -or-    elliston@biovax 
===============================================================================
Disclaimer:  I can have no OFFICIAL comments about anything........
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