The European initiatives MINE, CABRI, EBRCN and ENBI

Abstract

Worldwide development of biotechnology results increasingly in the recognition of the importance of microbial culture collections and their holdings. In particular, it is recognised that the knowledge on these holdings accumulated in culture collections should be put more easily at the use of researchers. Far sighted scientists, under the leadership of the late VBD Skerman, had set up, already from the mid 1960s on, activities to catalogue culture collections and their holdings.