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Nature: “Scientists must embrace a culture of sharing and rethink their vision of databases”

Good editorial on Nature, “Let Data Speak to Data“:

Web tools now allow data sharing and informal debate to take place alongside published papers. But to take full advantage, scientists must embrace a culture of sharing and rethink their vision of databases.

That being said, I find it more than a little ironic that this diatribe is published in Nature, of all places. Nature, the stalwart of the old academic regime… it’s method of publication (high cost of subscription, stringent peer-review-by-the-few instead of peer-review-by-the-masses as blogs are) seems quite opposed to the open, “let information be free!” attitude in this editorial.

But then again, isn’t it a good sign that the readership is thinking things like this, and that the editors are publishing such sentiments?