An article in Market Watch alerted me to this really cool resource: The Cell: an Image Library http://www.cellimagelibrary.org/. My love for cellular biology aside, this project is exciting for a number of reasons. First, it’s clear that robust ontologies are driving powerful search and browse features. Poke around the advanced search options to view the controlled vocabularies.

Second, anyone can contribute media files AND raw data. A team of annotators checks the submission and enriches metadata.

Third, while this NIH-funded project proclaims itself to benefit primary research first, the site is well-suited for classroom use.

A summary of the technical infrastructure can be found in this article in Scientific Computing.