As we all know number of US govt. offices have been shutdown. Due to this, important web sites are either not functioning or not updating. We are frequent users of PubMed and other NCBI web sites. Our research heavily depends on these web sites, particularly on PubMed. I want to know from other users how much it is affecting their research. And whether they will upgrade all information when the PubMed Site will be up?
PubMed is open, however it is being maintained with minimal staffing due to the lapse in government funding. Information will be updated to the extent possible, and the agency will attempt to respond to urgent operational inquiries. For updates regarding government operating status see USA.gov.
One thing to know is that science survived numerous wars against itself ... numerous setbacks ... And in the recent 100 years ... 2 world wars and a cold war shutdown for many years. Still research and knowledge continued. So I am sure this will just be a temporary setback and things will get better soon.
Private scientific databases still function I suppose ... Science Direct, Thomspons web of knowledge etc; ...
Let's hope for the best, prepare for the worst and forget the rest ...
Regards,
Akilesh. R
Chennai, India
Don't NCBI and EBI/EMBL use the same data sources?
So I think you can access anything which would normally be on PubMed or NCBI through either the European version of PubMed (http://europepmc.org/) or EMBL databases (http://www.embl.de/services/bioinformatics/index.php#Database). I have started to move away from PubMed to Google Scholar and Europe PMC recently anyway.
I did notice that NCBI seems to be running a bit slow and I had a few problems with the PrimerBLAST site a couple of days ago.
its true the pub med services became limited.even we are not getting the bacterial sequences what we submitted in NCBI.i hope it will be solved soon because its related to so many research progresses.
Peter, thanks for providing alternate to PubMed. I believe europe PMC is equivalent to PMC not substitute to PubMed (may be I am wrong). I do not know about others but I prefere NCBI for number of research activities. EBI and NCBI have common databases but they are not alternate to each other, we use both for our research work.
Gajendra, the EuropePMC FAQs say:
"Unlike PubMed Central, Europe PMC provides a single point of access to not only full-text articles but additionally the abstracts available through PubMed."
Although I am unsure as to the mechanism of how PubMed and the database is updated and whether if PubMed is not updated, this will also affect Europe PMC searches. As far I know the database which PubMed actually searches is the MedLine database run by NIH and I suspect there is some human input required to keep this up to date.
I agree I prefer to use NCBI on most occasions due to the interface and tools available, but if the basic information is the same, then it's better than nothing if NCBI stops working
I think Gajendra has specific issues ... and they are NOT related to just abstracts/ even I assumed it was just the abstracts. But NCBI also hosts a number of other stuff including the Protein sequences, Genomic Data ... which I am not sure if it is also shared by other databases. So if it's only abstracts, it's not ,much of an impact but if these particular data are not available and if there is no other source, that bec omes a major hurdle.
Govt Based / funded projects are usually trust worthy is what we usually assume. But this scenario kind of brings a wild jolt to me atleast ... The problem is the lack of proper personnel in running the pubmed and NCBI etc; They are running with limited staff and have hence suspended most other features I suppose ...
Like I said earlier, let's hope for the best, prepare for the worst and forget the rest ... :(
And hope the issue is resolved soon ...
Regards,
Dr. Akilesh. R
Chennai, India
It looks that USA is contributing most to world-wide research community in term of web-based service . I believe NCBI services are best for medical research particularly for bioinformatics services. I realized after service is restricted. Do you think their are better service site than NCBI?
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