In May 2019, NCBI staff retired the CloneDB website that for many years served researchers with information on genomic clones. Throughout the years, scientists registered 644 genomic-clone libraries from approximately 200 organisms with NCBI. While NCBI is no longer accepting new library registrations or associating newly deposited sequences with libraries, we are preserving the already gathered information on the Clone FTP site. NCBI staff will continue to place genomic clones from these libraries on RefSeq annotated assemblies. 

The Clone FTP site contains a Clone FAQs document where you will find details on the following topics:

• Understanding clone nomenclature
• Obtaining insert/end sequences for genomic clones
• Finding metadata for genomic clone libraries and individual clones
• Understanding the process of clone placement and associated terminology
• Interpreting the clone placement tracks that you will encounter on the web in the Genome Data Viewer (GDV) 
• Using GDV to identify genomic clones that contain a gene or sequence of interest

There are also two related videos on:

• Utilizing the Clone DB FTP site 
• Using clone placement to interpret genome assemblies 

If you were not familiar with the topic of genomic clones, see the following two introductory articles:

• What are genomic-clone libraries and how are they made?
• What does ‘genomic clone has been placed’ really mean?