The explosive growth of molecular biology has increased research in and knowledge of genetic diseases, often identifying the specific chromosomal location of genes and holding out hope of possible treatment for some inherited afflictions. The standard reference for genetic disease is Mendelian Inheritance in Man (edited by Victor McKusick and published by Johns Hopkins Press), now in its 11th edition. The first edition in 1966 was 344 pages; the 1994 edition is more than 3000 pages in two hefty volumes. Each entry includes a concise description of the discovery history of the particular genetic disease, extensive references to the research literature, and a clinical synopsis to aid in diagnosis.

Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) is the electronic version, under active development and revision with daily updates as new literature appears.

OMIM is obviously an essential tool for medical and genetic research, but it has a more general utility as an example of the Web's evolving potentials as an information delivery medium. Reference librarians and Internet trainers who have no particular interest in genetic diseases can use OMIM as a means to answer questions and illustrate searching strategies in indexed databases. A few examples will make this clear.

A query by keyword, by author's name, or by specific OMIM heading returns a relevance-ranked list of entries in which the search term appears. Boolean searching and wild-card matching are supported. Try:

If you have a graphic browser with sound and video capability these examples indicate the direction of OMIM's future development: