Biological databases: A new scientific literature |
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| Authors: | Robert J Robbins |
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| Institution: | 1. Welch Applied Research Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, 2024 East Monument Street, 21205, Baltimore, MD
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| Abstract: | Biology is entering a new era in which data are being generated that cannot be published in the traditional literature. Databases are taking the role of scientific literature in distributing this information to the community. The success of some major biological undertakings, such as the Human Genome Project, will depend upon the development of a system for electronic data publishing. Many biological databases began as secondary literature—reviews in which certain kinds of data were collected from the primary literature. Now these databases are becoming a new kind of primary literature with findings being submitted directly to the database and never being published in print form. Some databases are offering publishing on demand services, where users can identify subsets of the data that are of interest, then subscribe to periodic distributions of the requested data. New systems, such as fordable while offering a powerful search tool to the scientific community. Although many questions remain regarding the ultimate interactions between electronic and traditional data publishing and about their respective roles in the scientific process, electronic data publishing is here now, changing the way biology is done. The technical problems associated with mounting cost-effective electronic data publishing are either solved, or solutions seem in reach. What is needed now, to take us all the way into electronic data publishing as a new, formal literature, is the development of more high-quality, professionally operated EDP sites. The key to transforming these into a new scientific literature is the establishment of appropriate editorial and review policies for electronic data publishing sites. Editors have the opportunity and the responsibility to work in the vanguard of a revolution in scientific publishing. |
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