● http://www.cancer.gov

It's all-change at the United States National Cancer Institute (NCI): as well as a new Director, it has a new web site.

Navigation is now through a series of index tabs; this provides a welcome air of consistency throughout the site, but it's not obvious which information is directed at researchers and which is aimed at the general public. For researchers, finding funding opportunities is straightforward: the 'Research funding' tab takes you to a well-organized list of announcements and contact persons for grant applications. The 'Research programs' section is redundant with 'About NCI', but both sections provide a reasonable overview of NCI-funded research.

The problems come when you want to find a particular investigator or resource. The researcher directory is now hidden under 'Organizational structure' in 'About NCI', and the investigators' index, which doesn't have a search facility, is under 'Research programs'. A list of scientific resources is also located here, although it took me some time to track down old favourites such as the Cancer Genome Anatomy Project.

The acclaimed CancerNet site, which provides information on cancer diagnosis and treatment, is now housed in 'Cancer information'. Types of cancer are listed alphabetically, and it's easy to navigate between information for patients and that for health professionals, but, again, the free-text search facility has gone.

What's missing is a primer explaining the rationale for the reorganization, that maps the old resources onto the new site and describes new features. Without this, many of the NCI's treasures remain buried — to old and new visitors alike.