TCDL Bulletin
Volume 3   Issue 2
Summer 2007

Carole L. Palmer, Melissa H. Cragin and P. Bryan Heidorn
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
{clpalmer; cragin; pheidorn}@uiuc.edu

New practices are emerging in all stages of biological research, from data collection through dissemination of results. In addition, libraries and museums are increasingly being called upon to become the long-term curators and stewards of the range of intellectual products and research data. Through a series of cooperative projects with biologists working in data-intensive and informatics-based domains, we have documented requirements for digital libraries, tool development, and data management techniques to support contemporary scientific practice. Areas of information support that have emerged as priorities to complement the expertise of biological and computer scientists include digital library and repository development, data curation and preservation, ontology and standards development, and literature-based discovery.

This research is now serving as the foundation for a new biological informatics master's program designed to train a new generation of Library and Information Science professionals to serve in scientific research environments. Specifically, the program provides applied skills in building and evaluating systems that mediate effectively between users and collections, and emphasizes the range of library and information science including: collection development, classification schemes, information retrieval, knowledge representation, user evaluation, data curation, and policy standards. The program provides students with access to experts from across the University who specialize in many areas of biology and information management including information science, bioinformatics, biology, chemistry, statistics, and computer science, as well as internships at museums and data centers around the country.

For a larger view of Figure 1, click here.

For more information, see <http://sci.lis.uiuc.edu/>.

© Copyright 2007 Carole L. Palmer, Melissa H. Cragin and P. Bryan Heidorn
Some or all of these materials were previously published in the Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital libraries, ACM 1-59593-354-9.

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