Tag Archives: biological data sources

NBII To Be Taken Offline Permanently January 15, 2012

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“In recent years, however, the NBII–like so many other important federal programs–was plagued with budget cuts. The FY 2012 budget mandated its termination. The main Web site, www.nbii.gov, will be taken offline on January 15, 2012, along with all of its associated node sites.

The NBII provided three main benefits to the biological resource community. First, its design as a federation of partners allowed it to assist data owners in maintaining critical assets that might not otherwise be made broadly available; second, scientists, managers, and others searching for data on a particular subject could do so from a single, Web-based source rather than having to go to the sites of numerous organizations to compile the results they sought; and third, the NBII provided users with direct access to many data resources that are deeply embedded in structured databases on the Web and that are relevant to biology–resources that would not be revealed to them using a standard search engine such as Google.

USGS staff now are working with partners to identify ways that–to the extent possible–will help to fill the gap in data access that will be created when the NBII goes offline.”

To read more about the National Biological Information Infrastructure, here’s a link from which the above quote was taken:

http://www.usgs.gov/core_science_systems/Access/p1111-1.html

A Postscript:

“The Library of Congress is a part of a collaborative web archive project to archive U.S. Federal Government Websites, and this site has been crawled by the Internet Archive as a part of that project. It is not publicly accessible yet but it has been preserved.

 

Since we’re a part of the collaborative project, we’ll eventually get a copy of that capture for the Library of Congress archives.”

 

/mrc (Margaret Clifton, mcli@loc.gov)

 

NBII — National Biological Information Infrastructure — new look, more functional searching

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"The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) has updated its search engine to search multiple databases at the same time, and now also returns clustered results. You can try it at NBII.gov. "

Source: ResearchBuzz, 9/3/09

From "About" NBII :

The NBII Program is managed by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Biological Informatics Office, and "is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation’s biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high-quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools maintained by NBII partners and other contributors in government agencies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and private industry. NBII partners and collaborators also work on new standards, tools, and technologies that make it easier to find, integrate, and apply biological resources information. Resource managers, scientists, educators, and the general public use the NBII to answer a wide range of questions related to the management, use, or conservation of this nation’s biological resources."

U.S. Geological Survey adopting Vivisimo to improve NBII search platform

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The U.S. Geological Survey has chosen Vivisimo, a provider of enterprise search software and expertise, to provide its website users data and information from a number of biological data sources. Vivisimo Velocity Search Platform will replace the USGS’ National Biological Information Infrastructure’s (NBII) search solution and provide a single search interface. NBII is a collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on biological resources. The program works with various federal, state, non-profit, and educational institutions. The Velocity implementation will initially search 30 data sources across multiple agencies and universities. Velocity will also enable geospatial display of search results – allowing users to search for certain plants or animals in a specific region or location. USGS will also incorporate Velocity’s new conceptual search to take advantage of its extensive and authoritative Biocomplexity Thesaurus.

Source: E-Content Magazine (ECXtra) April 17, 2009.