This week marked the beginning of the annual Open Access Week 2010 event, running from Oct 18th-Oct 24. As the challenge this year Dr. Philip E. Bourne, Professor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego and Founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Computational Biology, called upon scholars to think beyond free and ready access to the literature – made possible by Open Access – and consider how technology may be deployed to advance research, to truly mine the increasing amount of available literature.

At Mendeley, we share the goal of making research more transparent and aim to provide the best productivity and collaboration platform for researchers. So we wanted to share an effort we are contributing for this week, and ask for YOUR contributions.
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Recently I was sitting at café Tryst in Washington D.C. along with Mendeley’s co-founders and a coffee house full of hipsters, Georgetown students, tourists, and a few politicos. In retrospect, perhaps this was the only setting possible to be discussing the future of research and our small part in it. We were surrounded by the common citizens who depend on the outputs of science, but had little to no power in changing its course for their benefit. More pointedly, they had no clue that science is being held back by the very people who are supposed to be advancing it.

We came to the conclusion that technology is finally at a point that if we don’t use it now, then we are holding back the progress of science. And what exactly are we to use technology on? Open science/data/access.

By our own hands

To understand how we (“we” meaning the research community) got here, we have to first briefly remember how the dissemination of science came to be the way it is. (more…)

Killing the advancement of science on the Web is killing the advancement of science as a whole.

A few weeks ago I attended a panel session at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco called, “Making the Web work for science.” (Video wrap-up here) Really, the focus was on how to get scientists to put their data up on the Web. Later that evening, I attended a post-reception gathering and briefly spoke with (name shall remain anonymous), the founder of a very popular social news media site; sites like Mixx, Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, Del.ic.ious, Stumbleupon, etc. I told him what I do and his enthusiastic response was, “Fuck the academic publishing industry!”

Now, perhaps his bold statement was due, in part, to the flow of alcoholic beverages at the event. There is more to it than that, however. He is not a trained scientist, but as the founder of a popular social news site, is very well aware of the state of science on the Interwebs. Like many people (notice the avoidance of the worn phrase ‘members of the public’ as if they are unable to contribute to science), he has a personal interest in the domain, and is trying to figure out how his business can enable scientists.

We have to wonder though, why are things so bad with science on the Web, that even an Internet entrepreneur recognizes the problem? And who or what is responsible for this mess?

Two groups are responsible: Scientists and, as you can tell, Publishers. Let’s start with the bad guys first, and then talk about the even more guilty party of bad guys.

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