VIVO http://vivo.library.cornell.edu creates a virtual life sciences community, bringing together in one Web site all the information needed to figure out who is doing what, where and how in the life sciences at Cornell.

A VIVO search transcends campus, college and department divides to provide an integrated view of the life sciences at Cornell. Students and faculty members can find information on scientists and their research, including grants and recent publications, facilities, undergraduate majors and graduate fields, and seminars and other events. This virtual life sciences collection provides easy access to online databases, software tools and image collections licensed for use by the Cornell community, as well as to important external resources.

Unlike most search engines, VIVO displays results with appropriate cross-referencing to place them in a context that makes sense and saves time. For example, a search for "proteomics" displays listings categorized by:

• "people," for comprehensive profiles of faculty members working in this field no matter which Cornell college or department they belong to;
• "activities," for courses, graduate fields and grants related to that subject;
• "events," for lectures, seminars and workshops;
• "organizations," for research programs, units or centers;
• "online resources," for online research tools related to proteomics; and
• "publications," including recent proteomics-related articles published by Cornell faculty members and news releases and impact statements. Each entry is linked directly to the original resource, which could be the full text of a recent journal article, a new genomics service or a faculty member's Web page.

VIVO was developed by the library's Life Sciences Working Group, a committee of librarians and information technology specialists from the Ithaca campus, Weill Cornell Medical College and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, N.Y.

Medha Devare is a bioinformatics and life sciences specialist at Mann Library.