Key areas of responsibility

- Bioinformatics opportunities for health sciences librarians and information professionals

Communication is essential to understanding and supporting the information needs of researchers. Responsibilities in this area include supporting open communication among research groups, creating progress reports, providing updates on new resources, marketing library services, reporting business intelligence research, providing opportunities for cross-training in emerging research areas, and attending organizational meetings to ensure the flow of information about library services, resources, and programs.

The University of Washington Health Sciences Library improved communication between the library and bioinformatics researchers and students through a number of strategic efforts. These included recruiting a biologist with a doctorate degree to act as a liaison, conducting needs analysis surveys, attending meetings of research groups, giving demonstrations of bioinformatics resources, and holding discussions with clients about desired resources and services [8].

An essential communication activity in university, research, and clinical settings is that of consultation services. Information professionals have discovered that reference consultations range from basic questions, such as how to locate databases or software programs, to inquiries requiring the librarian to know “the range of problems that can be answered by more advanced bioinformatics tools” [9] or to provide “in-depth assistance with data analysis” [10]. To establish and maintain credibility as research partners, librarians will need to pursue a level of training in bioinformatics that will prepare them to anticipate their clients' consultation needs.

Collection development responsibilities in bioinformatics go beyond traditional resources such as journals, books, literature databases, conference information, and Internet resources. These responsibilities include the identification and evaluation of specialized databases and tools, such as genome sequencing databases, protein function analysis tools, structure prediction programs, molecular modeling programs, and data mining software. Information professionals need to be familiar with computer programs for processing biological data written in various technical languages such as Perl, Java, and extensible markup language (XML) and have to understand database programs such as SQL and Oracle.

Many excellent resource guides have been created to support university bioinformatics programs, such as the HealthLinks/BioResearcher Toolkit at the University of Washington,^† the Molecular Biology & Bioinformatics Resources guide at the Weill Cornell Medical Library,^‡ and the Helix Helper for Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Utah.^§

Knowledge management supplies collaborative research groups with effective and efficient organization and retrieval of information, provides record keeping systems and support, and facilitates knowledge sharing. During the course of a research project, knowledge accumulates rapidly as data are processed, interpretations are made, and decisions are recorded. This knowledge assumes a variety of forms including log books, databases and spreadsheets, internal reports, progress reports, memoranda, correspondence, grant materials, public relations materials, and documents recording best practices. Access to these resources is crucial to the success of any research project in both corporate and academic research environments. Creating and maintaining a digital library of published information resources, software, unpublished documents, and supporting data are knowledge management activities that allow groups of researchers to access necessary information and tools regularly (see “Intranet Systems Development” below).

On a larger scale, academic libraries, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Rochester, are currently experimenting with the use of DSpace as a means to “collect, preserve, index and distribute the intellectual output of an organization” [11]. Cooperative resource sharing minimizes costs and pools efforts. In New York State, universities and corporations have launched AMDeC Microarray Resource Center, a cooperative initiative to share the costs of expensive bioinformatics analysis tools and equipment, help manage and archive the results of microarray analysis, and speed up the pace of research efforts [12].

Learning organizations focused on research and development and marketing, such as pharmaceutical companies, continuously work to improve information and knowledge management. Lamb, manager of the Knowledge Resource Center of Buckman Laboratories International, uses technology “to facilitate knowledge sharing when appropriate,” in the “form of online discussion forums or publishing on a corporate intranet” (see “Intranet Systems Development” below). She sees the purpose of any knowledge management effort as making “knowledge visible and accessible throughout the entire organization” and recognizes information professionals as “unique individuals who understand how to capitalize on information technology, maintain a synergy between traditional and new information practices, and facilitate knowledge sharing” [13].

Education and training responsibilities in an educational or collaborative research environment involve offering workshops on bioinformatics-specific resources, traditional research methods and tools, and problem-based learning techniques. Librarians who already have instructional experience and have developed expertise in searching complex databases can expand their skills to include teaching workshops on searching genomic sequence databases and protein sequence databases and using visualization tools for structure prediction and molecular modeling.

At the Weill Cornell Medical Library, librarians offer workshops to students, researchers, clinicians, and other librarians on molecular biology searching tools and resources [14]. Librarians at the University of Washington Health Sciences Libraries offer workshops on specific tools for microarray analysis including the GeneSifter Webware package and Vector NTI package [15].

As in other areas of medicine, science, and technology, current awareness is essential to the rapidly growing area of bioinformatics. Examples of current awareness resources are newsletters, such as the quarterly publication NCBI News,^** the Genomics & Health Weekly Update from the Centers for Disease Control,^†† the annual database issue of Nucleic Acids Research that includes a categorized list of databases;^‡‡ electronic lists such as Sigbioinform-l from the American Society for Information Science and Technology; ^§§ and Websites of groups involved in bioinformatics such as the Molecular Biology and Genomics Special Interest Group of the Medical Library Association^*** and the Genomics Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association [16].^†††

Writing activities permeate all collaborative research projects. These responsibilities range from planning research strategies; creating business intelligence or environmental scanning reports; providing updates on local, regional, national, and global developments in the field; creating annotated resource guides; recording and summarizing minutes of meetings; participating in email correspondence and electronic chats; editing and proofreading documents; preparing research reports for publication; developing public relations materials and press releases; to researching and coauthoring grant proposals.

Experienced health sciences librarians constantly integrate writing skills with communication and delivery of library services for teaching, program promotion, and grant writing and by participating in committees and associations. Information professionals lacking a science background can adapt their writing skills to collaborative science research projects by taking courses in medical terminology, technical writing, or science writing. For example, Northeastern University offers graduate courses in biomedical writing, science writing, and the rhetoric of science [17], while many schools offer both online and local classes in technical writing for local and distance learners.

Intranet systems, the backbone of knowledge management, are the contemporary medium for record keeping, information sharing, communicating, and delivering information in a collaborative research environment. Development of intranets, digital libraries, and electronic discussion forums consists of surveys of user information needs, evaluation of best practices, assistance with information architecture, indexing, design of Web pages, and development of systems, as well as purchasing and implementation of hardware and software.

The University of Washington Health Sciences Libraries staff have developed their intranet services to include access to licensed sequence analysis software, electronic full-text reference titles, an extensive Web pathfinder on molecular biology resources and tools, and Current Contents [18]. Bishop lists general competencies for “content managers” primarily concerned with digital information management and intranet development and contrasts these with the skills required of “knowledge managers” [19] (see “Knowledge Management” above).