1. Going Against Goliath 23 rd May 2010 Katrina Kurtz, MLIS Carrie Iwema, PhD, MLS Ansuman Chattopadhyay, PhD Health Sciences Library System University of Pittsburgh http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

2. Photo credit: http://www.uncabaret.com/node?page=5

3. Bioinformatics Tools Answer biological questions Made by informatics researchers Freely available to the public Published in scholarly journals Answer biological questions Made by informatics researchers Freely available to the public Published in scholarly journals http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

4. Bioinformatics Tools Examples:  Protein structure prediction  Sequence alignment  Databases of genes associated with disease  Protein interactions Examples:  Protein structure prediction  Sequence alignment  Databases of genes associated with disease  Protein interactions http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

5. Who Uses Bioinformatics Tools? Biologists:  Faculty researchers  Graduate students  Undergraduate students Doctors who do biomedical research Biomedical informatics researchers Biologists:  Faculty researchers  Graduate students  Undergraduate students Doctors who do biomedical research Biomedical informatics researchers http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

6. Online Bioinformatics Resources Collection Manually curated Searchable collection of bioinformatics tools Freely available to the public 2696 resources http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics/obrc/ Manually curated Searchable collection of bioinformatics tools Freely available to the public 2696 resources http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics/obrc/ http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

10. Common Criticisms… Why bother? Everyone uses Google. Google is taking over. Why bother? Everyone uses Google. Google is taking over. http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

11. Is Google Actually Better? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Large amount of data Popularity ranking Biologists are not librarians

12. Research Project Hypothesis http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics OBRC is better than Google at  Locating bioinformatics tools Quickly Easily Successfully  Leaving users happier with: Results Overall experience

13. Research Project http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics 10 biology graduate students Three tasks on both OBRC and Google Recorded search as they narrated Search experience survey

14. Research Project Measured:  Time spent on each search  Number of search queries  Number of sites visited  Success rate  Users’ ratings http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

15. Task 1: Protein Interaction http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics You are a pharmacologist interested in drugs that target proteins. Where would you find reliable information about how drugs interact with proteins, specifically information about the strength of the binding between the protein and ligand?

16. Task 2: Structure Prediction http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Find a tool that performs protein structure prediction. Determine from the search engine how often it has been cited.

17. Task 3: Ovarian Cancer http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Where would you look for information about all the published gene mutations implicated in ovarian cancer, in one place?

18. Is it faster? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Protein Interaction Structure Prediction Ovarian Cancer

19. Is it easier to find results? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Protein Interaction Structure Prediction Ovarian Cancer

20. Is it easier to find results? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Protein Interaction Structure Prediction Ovarian Cancer

21. Is it successful? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Protein Interaction Structure Prediction Ovarian Cancer

22. Do users like it? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

23. What do they say about Google? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics “I was just frustrated [by Google].” “Google was difficult to navigate with all the information on cancer.” “[Google is] time consuming unless we know what we are searching for.” “I realized that Google is not an effective search tool.”

24. What do they say about OBRC? http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics “Wow, this is really direct!” “Gives good results, but I don’t like the interface.” “OBRC is an excellent resource, especially if you don’t know exactly what you’re searching for.” “[OBRC] was much easier to locate relevant information.”

25. What did we learn about OBRC? Time lag Scopus and Google Scholar Spell check Long search queries Unaware it exists http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

26. Limitations Small sample size Potential bias from tasks Previous experience with Google http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

27. Future Work Larger sample size Other user groups User-chosen task http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics

28. Conclusions… http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics Searches using OBRC are:  Faster  Easier  More successful Users are more satisfied. Users plan to use OBRC in the future.

29. Conclusions… http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics …libraries can and should compete!

30. http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics This study is IRB approved. Funding provided by: NLM Grant 3 T15 LM007059-23S1 Thanks to my collaborators, Dr. Carrie Iwema and Dr. Ansuman Chattopadhyay Special thanks to Nancy Tannery and Dr. Rebecca Crowley

31. Thank you! Any questions? Katrina KurtzCarrie Iwema Ansuman Chattopadhyay kak59@pitt.eduiwema@pitt.edukak59@pitt.eduiwema@pitt.edu ansuman@pitt.eduansuman@pitt.edu 412-624-3508412-648-6887 412-648-1297 http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/genetics