Beyond GenBank

[Eliot Lear]

Hello Jim,

``How shall we feed the information to the masses?''

Thanks for your note of 22 Dec 92 on the status of GenBank.  I am
interested in how your database will be updated at different sites on
the Internet.  As you are aware, IntelliGenetics made these updates
available in at least three ways: [1] nightly updates in flat file
GenBank format, [2] nightly updates over USENET which were
incorporated by a program written by Ross Smith and Roy Smith, and [3]
through LANL's portable DB update format (as I recall you received
these updates).

What are NCBI's plans in this area?  I understand that you are using
ASN.1 to exchange transactions.  But how will this affect me if I want
to keep my database synched with yours?  I am confident that you guys
back there have thought about this problem long and hard.

Is there a white paper I can grab on this stuff?

Thanks,

Eliot Lear
[lear at sgi.com]