ReferencePoint ? Molecular Biology Resources for Librarians ...

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By Bethany Harris, NLM Associate Fellow

As a librarian, you may receive reference requests about genetic disorders, protein sequences, or bioinformatics even if these subjects fall outside of your area of expertise.? Luckily, you don?t need a science to degree to help guide your users to appropriate molecular biology resources and educational materials.

Explore these educational resources from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and other National Institutes of Health (NIH) agencies to expand your scientific vocabulary and increase your understanding of current topics in molecular biology:

• The Education page at genome.gov from the National Human Genome Research Institute provides Fact Sheets about science topics, education resources for teachers, videos about careers in genetics, and the popular Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms reference tool with illustrations and animations
• A Science Primer from the National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at NLM gives an introduction to the concepts and fields of science underlying the NCBI resources, such as genome mapping, phylogenetics, and microarray technology
• Genetics Home Reference from the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications at NLM presents consumer-friendly information about genetic disorders and related genes, chromosomes, and molecular processes

NCBI offers a daunting array of bioinformatics tools used by all kinds of researchers.? Their databases contain information on organisms, gene and protein sequences, genomes, chemicals, biomedical literature, and much more.? However, NCBI also provide users with several ways to get to know their resources.

• Start at the NCBI Educational Resources page to explore the many methods used to teach users about their databases
• View the Fact Sheets for resource-specific documentation and see the NCBI Overview field guide for a fantastic handout that succinctly describes the uses of several of the top NCBI databases
• ?Look under Teaching Resources to find Tutorials presented in different formats, including web tutorials, problem sets, and video tutorials
• Click NCBI Resources under Getting Started for a listing of all of the NCBI databases and be sure to visit the How To tab for detailed instructions on how to carry out procedures ranging from scientific tasks (such as Design PCR primers and check them for specificity) to keeping up with new resources and updates (such as Find out what?s new at NCBI)

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Photo Credit:? Darryl Leja, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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QUESTION: What educational resources do you recommend for librarians and users to expand their knowledge of molecular biology and related subjects?

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March 29, 2012 ?Tags:?molecular biology, NCBI, NHGRI, NLM? Posted?in:?Genetics, NCBI, NLM, NLM Databases

Source: http://blog.citizen.apps.gov/ReferencePoint/2012/03/29/molecularbiologyresourcesforlibrariansconsumersandresearchscientists/

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