Databases have become an integral part of all aspects of biological research, including basic and applied plant biology. The
importance of databases continues to increase as the volume of data from direct and indirect genomics approaches expands.
What is not always obvious to users of databases is the range of available database resources, their access points, or some
basic elements of database querying. This chapter briefly summarizes the history of data access via the Internet and reviews
some basic terms and considerations in dealing with plant and crop databases. The reader is directed to some of the major
publicly available Internet-accessible relevant databases with summaries of the major focuses of those databases, and several
examples are given to illustrate how to access plant genomics data. Finally, an outline is given of some of the issues facing
the future of plant and crop databases.
Affiliation(s): (4) Department of Plant Breeding, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853 Series: Methods in Molecular Biology | Volume: 513 | Pub. Date: Mar-01-2008 | Page Range: 243-262 | DOI: 10.1007/978-1-59745-427-8_13