This blog post is directed toward medical or science librarians in the United States who offer bioinformatics education and support services or are planning to offer such services in the future.
The NCBI, in partnership with the National Library of Medicine Training Center (NTC), will once again offer the Librarian’s Guide to NCBI course on the NIH campus, March 7-11, 2016 (Announcement). This will be the fourth presentation of the course, and there are now 69 graduates of the training program.
These graduates represent 61 libraries, hospitals and government agencies from 27 states and the District of Columbia. Librarian’s Guide graduates now form a core community of NCBI-trained bioinformatics support specialists who maintain collaboration and mutual support through an online forum and monthly NCBI “Office hours” videoconference discussion sessions with course faculty and students. Materials from the 2013, 2014 and 2015 courses are available now, as well as lecture videos for the expression module.
If you are a medical or science librarian in the United States who offers bioinformatics education and support services or are planning to offer such services in the future, please join us for this intensive exploration of modern molecular biology, genetic data and other biomedical data as represented at the NCBI. The course explains how and why these data are generated, their importance in modern biomedical research, and how to access them through the NCBI website.
The online application is now open. The application deadline is September 14, 2015. This is a combined application for the prerequisite online Fundamentals of Bioinformatics and Searching and the five-day in-person course. If you have already completed the Fundamentals class, please let us know on the application. Anyone who has previous taken Fundamentals is eligible to apply for the in-person course in March at NIH. See below for more information on the Fundamentals course.
Prerequisite: Fundamentals of Bioinformatics and Searching
Because of the fast-paced and intense nature of the course, all applicants for A Librarian’s Guide must successfully complete the online Fundamentals of Bioinformatics and Searching class offered through the NTC. The Fundamentals class is an introduction to molecular biology and bioinformatics taught by Diane Rein, Ph.D, MLS that provides essential background for the in-person course. For those who have not yet taken the online course, a special section of Fundamentals will be offered in the Fall of 2015, from October 26 – December 11, 2015, with classes not held the week of Thanksgiving.
are there any on line courses such as these for those of us living abroad and unable to attend in person?
We don’t offer completely online courses, but you are welcome to access any of the materials from the Librarian’s Guide courses from the FTP site. Another great resource for instruction on NCBI tools and databases is our YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to to be alerted whenever we post a new video. The channel also has several playlists separated by subject matter, and you can also search the channel for a specific topic or NCBI tool/resource.
In addition, we have an extensive set of useful factsheets and other handouts on the FTP site; you can check the README file, which indexes our factsheets. Finally, keep an eye on our Webinars and Courses page for upcoming educational opportunities including links to course materials, recordings and live webinar presentations.
Thank you so much for this information!