Information Seeking Behavior of Medical Scientists at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Science

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to identify the library services and facilities provided to the Medical Scientists of JNIMS, Porompat. The study is limited to Medical Scientist of JNIMS who employed at twenty two (22) different medical departments of JNIMS. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is based on survey method; questionnaire and interview method is used for collection of primary data. Hundred (100) questionnaires were distributed to the medical scientist of JNIMS. Findings: Services and facilities provided by the library are not satisfied by the medical scientist; library lack qualified manpower to function the library. Originality/Value: The study is part of the dissertation submitted to the Department of Library and Information Science, Manipur University for the year2014-2015. Article Type: Case Study

An Overview of Biological Data Mining

The largest digital repository of information, the World Wide Web keeps growing exponentially and calls for data mining services to provide tailored web experiences. This chapter discusses the overview of information retrieval, knowledge discovery and data mining. It reviews the different stages of data mining and introduces the wide spread biological databanks, their explosion, integration, data warehousing, information retrieval, text mining, text repositories for biological research publications, domain specific search engines, web mining, biological networks and visualization, ontology and systems biology. This chapter also illustrates some technical jargon with picture analogy for a novice learner to understand the concepts clearly.

Information Needs of Bioinformatics Researchers

Information plays a vital role in bioinformatics to achieve the existing bioinformatics information technologies and to identify the needs of bioinformatics researchers. The most revolutionary development for bioinformatics resources is access to the internet because internet is pervasive in all bioinformatics work. Users required various sources of information for conducting bioinformatics research. The success of the information service is more likely to be achieved by adjusting the services to meet the specific needs of an individual.

Web Resources on Zea mays

Zea mays (Z mays), commonly known as corn, is a staple food used worldwide. The research field involving Z. mays has huge potential for agricultural scientists, where the new inventions are being used for the better crop protection. Bioinformatics has revolutionized the research where gene sequencing technology has helped a lot in better agricultural practices through mapping. This chapter proposed to review the research involving Z mays and worldwide resources available on the crop.

Research, Leadership, and Resource-Sharing Initiatives

A consortium is an association of independent libraries and/or library systems established by formal agreement, usually for the purpose of resource-sharing. The needs of special libraries cannot be fully addressed by regional organization because of its wide scope, thus, a consortium for specific group is deemed useful. This book chapter aims to describe the development of a local consortium and its role in building a culture of research, creating dynamic leadership and discussing how resource-sharing scheme goes beyond traditional inter-library loan. Using focus group discussion, the consortium members thresh out issues and concerns where collaborative research, dynamic leadership and resource- sharing pave way to enhance access to medical information.

Data Mining, Big Data, Data Analytics

In this digital and computing world, data formation and collection rate are growing very rapidly. With these improved proficiencies of data storage and fast computation along with the real-time distribution of data through the internet, the usual everyday ingestion of data is mounting exponentially. With the continuous advancement in data storage and accessibility of smart devices, the impact of big data will continue to develop. This chapter provides the fundamental concepts of big data, its benefits, probable pitfalls, big data analytics and its impact in Bioinformatics. With the generation of the deluge of biological data through next generation sequencing projects, there is a need to handle this data trough big data techniques. The chapter also presents a discussion of the tools for analytics, development of a novel data life cycle on big data, details of the problems and challenges connected with big data with special relevance to bioinformatics.

Library Services for Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is an emerging data intensive discipline. The community and information resources and sources are heterogeneous. It is the role of library to provide a comprehensive platform to deliver effective information services to the community. The paper discusses the status of various bioinformatics information resources available for the community. It is essential to search, consolidate and made information resources available to the community. The paper also discusses the methodology for integration of information resources at a single platform. The integration platform is proposed shall highlight the role of the library in understanding the current best practices to deliver effective information to bioinformatics community. It will discuss the close relationship between data and information playing an extensive role in generation of bioinformatics knowledge. Further, a model has been proposed for the resource integration in the area of bioinformatics in order to provide a comprehensive platform for knowledge dissemination.

Open Access Journal in Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of science, where methods from information technology, computer science, mathematics, and statistics are used to solve problems of biological science. To access latest scholarly articles in such an important branch one cannot deny the importance of open access journals. In this chapter an attempt has been made to access the current status of open access journals of bioinformatics which are covered by Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) on various parameters like country and language of publication, their currency, impact factor, article processing charges, copyright licensing model they are using, platform for hosting and their coverage in abstracting/indexing databases.

Information Retrieval and Access in Cloud

With increase of information sharing over the internet or intranet, we require techniques to increase the availability of shared resource over large number of users trying to access the resources at the same time. Many techniques are being proposed to make access easy and more secure in distributed environment. Information retrieval plays an important to serve the most reliant data in least waiting, this chapter discuses all such techniques for information retrieval and sharing over the cloud infrastructure. Cloud Computing services provide better performance in terms of resource sharing and resource access with high reliability and scalability under high load.

Information Needs and Assessment of Bioinformatics Students at the University of Swaziland

A survey was carried out of the information landscape within the students of Computer Science, Biology and Mathematics in the University of Swaziland which examined the research problems, important sources of information, the methods of access, information needs and seeking behavior of the users their assessment and the role of the Libraries since Librarian have to identify the information needs, uses and problems faced to meet the needs and requirement of the user. A total of 200 questionnaire were distributed. The survey indicated that majority of the students believe that the online resources play a very important role for their research and show positive attitude toward future bioinformatics usage and training. The study concluded that the training preferences of students need to be further explored.