Send a message with the word HELP as the text of the message to receive the instructions for using the Retrieve server, which performs searches of GenBank and other databases (listed in the help documentation).
To receive instructions for obtaining dbEST or dbSTS records, send a message with the following in the body of the message:
datalib dbest [or dbsts] help
Send a message with the word HELP as the text of the message to receive the instructions for using the BLAST server, which performs sequence similarity searches against GenBank and other databases.
If you are having difficulty with a query on the Blast or Retrieve e-mail servers, send a request for specific help to the appropriate address above.
If you did a Retrieve or Blast search and received the "help" message for the appropriate server in return, that indicates that there was a problem parsing your query. You may be able to determine the problem by consulting the instructions received in this "help" message, which is identical to what you would receive if you had asked for the instructions as described under the server names above.
If you are a subscriber to NCBI's Entrez CD-ROM products and need technical assistance, please send your specific question this address.
For users with Internet access, both Entrez and BLAST sequence similarity searching are available by using client software. Use this 'net-info' address for questions about Network Entrez and the 'blast-help' address for questions about Network BLAST.
BITS is an e-mail group to which announcements of major software changes and releases of the NCBI software toolkit are sent. It is not a bulletin board, but intended as a notification mechanism for those seriously interested in developing applications using the toolkit. It is an automatic rebroadcast server, so messages sent to BITS are rebroadcast to the other participants. To join BITS, send your name, address, affiliation, and e-mail address to the address above.
Send a message to this address to request to be added to the mailing list that announces meetings of the CSDIG.