GenBank and Stock Centers per unit of elapsed time and per dollar invested. The number of publications citing data provided by the sequencing group, and the number of new research projects initiated throughout the community reliant on a particular large-scale sequencing project are useful measures of the public value of such projects. As measures of any sequencing center’s success in serving its community, those factors must be visibly advertised and regularly updated on every project Web page. The community needs to be able to understand easily what data to expect and when to expect them, so that researchers whose work requires access to the center’s information can plan their experiments and activities. Progress in large-scale community-service projects should not be presented only when they are up for renewal or at the end of a funding period, and scientific advisory boards and project reviewers should be rigorous in their monitoring of this feature of large-scale service projects.