Xref: utzoo bionet.molbio.genbank:95 news.software.b:3852 sci.bio:2592 sci.chem:772 sci.physics:10788 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!shelby!portia!forel!karish From: karish@forel.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genbank,news.software.b,sci.bio,sci.chem,sci.physics Subject: Re: Creating Electronic Research Libraries Summary: Internet protocol needed for database queries Keywords: Usenet M_Lesk Refer Software Terabyte_Optical_Disk_Devices Message-ID: <7806@portia.Stanford.EDU> Date: 20 Dec 89 08:17:57 GMT References: <617@mbph.UUCP> <1989Dec20.011113.724@agate.berkeley.edu> Sender: USENET News System Reply-To: karish@forel.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish) Followup-To: bionet.molbio.genbank Organization: Mindcraft, Inc. Lines: 59 [ Note the `Followup-To:' header. This is an exciting topic as far as data sharing goes, but it's probably a tangential thread for most of the newsgroups in the original distribution. --crk ] In article <1989Dec20.011113.724@agate.berkeley.edu> sachs@tanner.UUCP (Rainer Sachs) wrote: >In article <617@mbph.UUCP> hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl Dept of Biophysics SM) writes: >>Dear Santa,... >>There appears to be a need to establish electronic research libraries. >>... >>An UNIX shell program like lookbib or seekbib can be used to extract >>relevant reference from an M. Lesk archive. Because it is unlikely >>that all users will be able to ftp directly to the computer system >>that contains the archive, they should be able to issue a control >>command that would cause the remote execution of a seekbib shell >>with the results of the search returned via e-mail. ... > >Is this advocating non-interactive searches? So it would seem. >Speaking for myself, I think a non-interactive search would be >virtually useless. I have lot of experience searching medline. >I can't recall *ever* getting the search exactly right the first >time. When I do get it right, I always need to pick and >choose among abstracts in order to get the ones I want without >hopelessly cluttering up my own reference files, duplicating, etc. >Assuming Santa has limited funds, I would urge him to put them >only into programs and situations where interactive searches are >possible. How does the net feel? I agree. Mr. Hybl was not ambitious enough in compiling his wish list. An electronic library should be built around the capabilities of the available high-speed networks. I'd do this by finding or inventing an Internet protocol that users connected to the NSFnet could use to make queries of remote database server machines. The user would invoke an interactive client program on the local machine. This client would send requests to the server, which would search the database using the chosen patterns and return the results. Once the user has found interesting information, it might be downloaded directly to the screen or to a file, depending on the amount and organization of the data. It might be desirable to provide hooks by which users without NSFnet access might use the servers in batch mode, presumably by downloading the indexes by anonymous UUCP or by using a LISTSERV-style interface. A USENET-style interface would be of limited utility, unless several servers are to share all data submitted. For the end user, news readers aren't good enough at searching databases. The server model exemplified by NNTP might be a good inspiration for the proposed project, but the protocol would be different. Chuck Karish karish@mindcraft.com (415) 323-9000 karish@forel.stanford.edu