Data-banks: a comparative study of INSERM and NLM data-banks

The two main types of computerized information systems at present available to users-bibliographic systems and data-banks-render different, though complementary services. While bibliographic systems retrieve citations, data-banks provide correct and precise items of information in reply to queries. The nature of these items can be numeric, alphanumeric, textual or factual. The object of this paper is to contribute to a definition of data-banks through a description and a comparison of two new banks: (a) BIR, the data-bank on research contracts financed by the French Ministry of the Environment, is a 'factual' bank designed by INSERM as both an information and a management tool for the use of researchers and administrators. (b) TDB, the Toxicology Data Bank developed by the National Library of Medicine, is a textual bank covering toxicological data taken from sources such as manuals and handbooks. It provides a summary of the state of knowledge on a given substance at a given time.