This document provides an introduction to web services, including how they provide programmatic access to biological databases. It defines web services as software that allows machine-to-machine communication over a network in a standardized way. The document explains that web services can be accessed through REST or SOAP and describes the basic processes of discovering a service, making requests, and receiving results. It provides examples of REST and SOAP, noting differences like REST being simpler while SOAP is based on standards. The introduction aims to simplify technical concepts for a non-technical audience.