ovens/faq/wais

[Dan Jacobson x-8453]

David Steffen writes:

> .....If the description contained alot more key
>words, the source would be easier to find.  Off the top of my head I
>would like to see bionet, Kristofferson, biology, molecular biology,
>perhaps a list of all of the bionet newsgroup names and the mailing
>list names, etc, included in the description.  I firmly believe this
>would be desireable; would it be easy to do?


Yes it would be quite easy to do.  THe description of the source is up to the
creator of the source, in this case the folks at IG who have been so good about
creating this resource for us to use/search.  The folks at think.com are quite
aware that many of the source files are lacking in descriptive content and are
VERY supportive of anyone who is trying to improve the source descriptions.
It`s really quite easy to do - just add a description to the end of the source 
file - in this case it would look like this:

(:source 
   :version  3 
   :ip-address "134.172.3.160"
   :ip-name "genbank.bio.net"
   :tcp-port 210
   :database-name "biosci"
   :cost 0.00 
   :cost-unit :free 
   :maintainer "biosci-request at genbank.bio.net"
   :description "This database contains an archive of articles posted 
to the BIOSCI mailing lists and newsgroups since 1989.  bionet, Kristofferson, 

List of BIOSCI Newsgroups
-------------------------

NEWSGROUP NAME               TOPIC
--------------               -----
AGEING                       Discussions about ageing research
AGROFORESTRY                 Discussions about agroforestry research
ARABIDOPSIS                  Newsgroup for the Arabidopsis Genome Project
BIOFORUM                     Discussions about biological topics for
                                which there is not yet a dedicated newsgroup
BIOLOGICAL-INFORMATION-
  THEORY-AND-CHOWDER-SOCIETY Applications of information theory to biology
BIONAUTS                     Question/answer forum for help using
                                electronic networks, locating e-mail
                                addresses, etc.
BIONEWS **                   General announcements of widespread
                                interest to biologists
BIO-JOURNALS                 Tables of Contents of biological journals
BIO-MATRIX                   Applications of computers to biological databases
BIO-SOFTWARE                 Information on software for the biological
                                sciences
CHROMOSOME-22                Mapping and Sequencing of Human Chromosome 22
COMPUTATIONAL-BIOLOGY **     Mathematical and computer applications in biology
EMBL-DATABANK                Messages to and from the EMBL database staff
EMPLOYMENT                   Job opportunities
GDB                          Messages to and from the Genome Data Bank staff
GENBANK-BB                   Messages to and from the GenBank database staff
GENETIC-LINKAGE              Newsgroup for genetic linkage analysis
HIV-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY        Discussions about the molecular biology of HIV
HUMAN-GENOME-PROGRAM         NIH-sponsored newsgroup on human genome issues
IMMUNOLOGY                   Discussions about research in immunology
METHODS-AND-REAGENTS         Requests for information and lab reagents
MOLECULAR-EVOLUTION          Discussions about research in molecular evolution
NEUROSCIENCE                 Discussions about research in the neurosciences
PLANT-BIOLOGY                Discussions about research in plant biology
POPULATION-BIOLOGY           Discussions about research in population biology
PROTEIN-ANALYSIS             Discussions about research on proteins
PROTEIN-CRYSTALLOGRAPHY      Discussion about crystallography of macromolecules
SCIENCE-RESOURCES            Information from/about scientific funding
                                agencies
TROPICAL-BIOLOGY             Discussions about research in tropical biology
"
)






Now that would probably be sufficient but you can include whatever you like
in the description field of a source file, so if you want to include more
information you can. Once a good description has been decided upon (or the 
one given here could be used) whoever manages the Wais databases at IG can
send it into think.com.   Probably the best person to send it to would be
Jonathan Goldman (Jonathan at Think.COM) 

Happy hunting,

Dan Jacobson