LiMB - Molecular Biology Database
Prof. David Tinker
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LiMB, (The Listing of Molecular Biology Databases), is an extensive
catalogue of data repositories in the field of Molecular Biology and related
biochemical areas. LiMB is an undertaking of the Human Genome Project, and is
compiled and maintained by Christian Burks and John Lawton of Los Alamos
National Laboratory. This database contains exhaustive information on world-
wide data resources, their contents, access to them, etc. - the full listing
of LiMB covers 53 database resources and runs to 69 pages (128Kbyte). The
database is in the Public Domain, and would be useful to researchers wishing
to identify and access these resources.
I have obtained this resource in electronic form, and will distribute it
to interested parties in various forms (see below).
LiMB is available in the following electronic formats:
(a) The ASCII files just as I received them - complete database in four
pieces plus covering letter (if you need this format, better bring a disk to
my office).
(b) An MS-DOS archive, prepared using PKARC3.5 of the preceding material
(about 60Kbyte).
(c) A compressed UNIX shar archive (about 50Kbyte), which is the preferred
form.
(d) Photocopied hard copy: there will be a small charge for this, payable
to the Department of Biochemistry.
As well as the raw material, I have prepared an extract of the database,
(LIMBXTR) which contains for each LiMB entry the following:
%ENT: Entry Code
%NUM: LiMB Number of Database
%NAM: Database Name
%ALT: Alternate Name(s) separated by semicolon (up to 4)
%KEY: Keywords (up to 11)
%ACC: Access to Data
%ITM: Number of Items in Database
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LIMBXTR is available from me in several formats:
(i) A flat file, LIMBXTR.DAT (about 11K) together with two short utility
programs in C for accessing line items.
(ii) A Dbase III (tm) file, LIMBXTR.DBF (about 20K) containing the same
data in structured form, together with a dictionary of all the keywords.
(iii) On request, the structured LIMBXTR database can be provided in a
number of other formats, including Lotus-123 (tm) worksheet, PC-FileIII (tm)
or Data Interchange Format (DIF).
Please request copies from me by E-mail (not postings), or by regular
mail/voice, specifying the version preferred; E-mailed files will be sent as
uuencoded binaries (ARC or compressed Shar). If there is sufficient response
(say, more than 10) I will post LiMB in usenet!Sci.bio.
Finally, I will be receiving regular updates to LiMB and will make
additions, etc. available in the same way.
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! David O. Tinker ! ^ ^ ! UUCP: utgpu!dtinker !
! Department of Biochemistry ! < O O > ! BITNET: dtinker@utoronto !
! University of Toronto ! ^ ! BIX: dtinker !
! TORONTO, Ontario, Canada ! ##### ! Voice: (416) 978-3636 !
! M5S 1A8 ! ! And so on. !
! ! Hi ho ! !
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