Time to organize the bioinformatics resourceome

The field of bioinformatics has blossomed in the last ten years, and as a result, there is a large and increasing number of researchers generating computational tools for solving problems relevant to biology. Because the number of artifacts has increased greatly, it is impossible for many bioinformatics researchers to track tools, databases, and methods in the field—or even perhaps within their own specialty area. More critically, however, biologist users and scientists approaching the field do not have a comprehensive index of bioinformatics algorithms, databases, and literature annotated with information about their context and appropriate use. We suggest that the full set of bioinformatics resources—the ‘‘resourceome’’—should be explicitly characterized and organized. A hierarchical and machine-understandable organization of the field, along with rich cross-links (an ontology!) would be a useful start. It is likely that a distributed development approach would be required so that those with focused expertise can classify resources in their area, while providing the metadata that would allow easier access to useful existing resources.