In this article we provide an overview of opportunities for research and practice in the domain of molecular biology by information and library scientists. We introduce the changing role of data and information in molecular biology, and how molecular biology is evolving from a technique-and technology-driven science to an information-driven science. We then describe the highlevel objectives of molecular biology and some broad classes of problems from an information perspective. We illustrate the high-level objectives with examples of specific tasks performed by biologists. Finally, we provide some programmatic direction for information and library science research streams and insertion points.

We have created a federated database for genome studies of Magnaporthe grisea, the causal agent of rice blast disease, by integrating end sequence data from BAC clones, genetic marker data and BAC contig assembly data. A library of 9216 BAC clones providing >25-fold coverage of the entire genome was end sequenced and fingerprinted by HindIII digestion. The Image/FPC software package was then used to generate an assembly of 188 contigs covering >95% of the genome. The database contains the results of this assembly integrated with hybridization data of genetic markers to the BAC library. AceDB was used for the core database engine and a MySQL relational database, populated with numerical representations of BAC clones within FPC contigs, was used to create appropriately scaled images. The database is being used to facilitate sequencing efforts. The database also allows researchers mapping known genes or other sequences of interest, rapid and easy access to the fundamental organization of the M.grisea genome. This database, MagnaportheDB, can be accessed on the web at http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/fungal_genomics/mgdatabase/int.htm.

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Metadata and an appropriate metadata model are nontrivial components of information architecture conceptualization and implementation, particularly when disparate and dispersed systems are integrated. Metadata availability can enhance retrieval processes, improve information organization and navigation, and support management of digital objects. To support these activities efficiently, metadata need to be modeled appropriately for the tasks. The authors' work focuses on how to understand and model metadata requirements to support the work of end users of an integrative statistical knowledge network (SKN). They report on a series of user studies. These studies provide an understanding of metadata elements necessary for a variety of user-oriented tasks, related business rules associated with the use of these elements, and their relationship to other perspectives on metadata model development. This work demonstrates the importance of the user perspective in this type of design activity and provides a set of strategies by which the results of user studies can be systematically utilized to support that design.

2005, the NSF-sponsored GovStat project (http:// I ils.unc.edu/govstat, Gary Marchionini, PI) sponsored a symposium on help. The goal of the symposium was to discuss what project members, federal agency colleagues and others had learned about the problems with existing help facilities for large public-access websites and to start forming a new vision of what help could and should be. We agreed that we must rejuvenate interest in help and develop a research agenda to address the gaps in our understanding. At the 2005 ASIS&T meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, we reunited symposium participants to share and discuss the symposium findings with the ASIS&T community.We opened the panel session by asking the audience who among them had clicked on a "help" button or link during the last week. Of the 30 or 40 who raised their hands, only two responded that they had found what they needed. This set the stage for the panelists' perspectives: what is the problem, and what can the ASIS&T community do to solve it? The Panelists' PerspectivesPanelists were asked to talk about challenges involved in providing good help, as well as success stories and opportunities for the future.