BioMoleculesAlive.org: The biochemistry and molecular biology digital library

Abstract

BioMoleculesAlive.org is a collection of digital resources sponsored by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It is part of a larger effort called the BioSciEdNet (BEN)11 The abbreviations used are: BEN, BioSciEdNet; AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science; EPD, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Education and Professional Development Committee. initiative (www.biosciednet.org; see Fig. 1), which includes more than 10 related libraries from organization such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and BioQUEST. The collection will include resources in five areas: software, visual resources, curriculum resources, reviews, and articles from Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. BioMoleculesAlive.org is designed to benefit the educational community in a number of ways. First it is intended to make a variety of electronic and digital resources available for teaching, learning, and research in biochemistry and molecular biology. These resources will be archived on the BioMoleculesAlive.org server, which should enable us to avoid a phenomenon sometimes called “link rot” where Internet resources disappear over time for a number of reasons; for example, universities upgrade their servers from time to time, and not all links may be updated to reflect the change in the server name. Second, and perhaps most important for those developing these resources, it will provide a peer-reviewed environment for the presentation of your efforts. The creators of these resources recognize the effort they take and the impact they can have on the classroom. The documented review process that is integral to BioMoleculesAlive.org can be presented along with the digital resources themselves to committees that review applications for tenure and promotion. At this point BioMoleculesAlive.org is still on the drawing board. However, the design and database structure of this site will be similar to the other BEN member sites, particularly MicrobeLibrary.org (the American Society of Microbiology digital library) and apsarchives.org (the American Physiological Society digital library). Instructions for on-line submission of all resources will be available. Once submitted, responsible BioMoleculesAlive.org steering committee members (see Table I) will distribute the materials to volunteer reviewers from within the education community. Accepted materials will then be posted in the library. The site is designed to serve the education community at all levels from elementary school through college and medical school. Submissions will be assigned a suggested target audience to enable users to identify appropriate materials. Digital materials that are submitted directly to BioMoleculesAlive.org will be available free of charge for download and use. At this point the only foreseeable costs involve access to articles published in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, which will only be available to individuals and institutions that subscribe to that journal. BioMoleculesAlive.org will have a built-in search engine that will allow users to identify appropriate materials for their courses. In addition, the site will be designed with input from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Education and Professional Development Committee (EPD). Part of the submission process will include identifying the educational level of the resource as well as the areas of biochemistry and molecular biology covered. These will be coordinated with the EPD's guidelines for undergraduate degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to further assist users. Support is pending from the National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) program under the umbrella of the BEN initiative (see Fig. 1) headed by Yolanda George of AAAS. With 2 years of support, our goal is to construct a web portal to biochemistry and molecular biology education resources built upon a fully searchable database. BioMoleculesAlive.org will integrate seamlessly with the other member sites at the BEN portal (www.biosciednet.org) and will be modeled after the American Society of Microbiology education site (www.microbelibrary.org). Thanks for asking. Critical needs are found in two areas: content and reviewers. Most of the National Science Foundation (NSF) support will be dedicated to web design and database development. Thus, content development, submission, and review are going to require volunteers. Once BioMoleculesAlive.org is on line, opportunities to submit and review digital objects will be available through a web page. Until then, please contact Paul Craig (pac8612@osfmail.isc.rit.edu) or Kelly Gull (kgull@asbmb.faseb.org) if you would like to submit resources to BioMoleculesAlive.org, and we will direct these resources to the members of the steering committee. Organization of the BEN initiative. BioSciEdNet is a collaboration of 13 different organizations (only five are shown in this chart) devoted to providing excellent resources for teaching and research in the Biological Sciences. BioMoleculesAlive.org is the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology component of this collaboration; representative resources that are expected in this library are shown subordinate to BioMoleculesAlive.org in this chart.