World Collections of Parasitic Worms

This article provides information about the depositories of parasitic worms in the scientific institutes and museums in the United States, Japan, and Europe (the total number of samples and the availability of types of helminths from various classes), as well as information on the availability of electronic catalogues of the collections in the continental, national, and regional centers for collective use. The extent of this material has determined the necessity of creating digital collections and libraries that would represent a new form of storing, displaying, and exchanging information for scientific research. An analysis was performed of the current state of approaches and methods of development of the specialized information retrieval system (IRS) and databases (DBs) on the parasitic worms in Russia on the basis of a common conceptual data model, taking into account their local use (as desktop systems of database management) and access by scientists worldwide via the Internet.