Bits of Power: Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data (1997)
Chapter: Front Matter
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Preface
Science is perhaps the most truly international of human enterprises, not because it is based on cooperation among nations but rather because its practitioners collaborate and compete in an endeavor in which nationality tends to be irrelevant. Since Galileo corresponded with Kepler and Leeuwenhoek sent his observations to the Royal Society in London, the internationalization of science has grown steadily, with post-World War II travel and fellowship support, growing numbers of opportunities for academic exchanges, and, most recently, electronic information exchange and the end of the Cold War. Financial support for science, especially by governments, has been crucial in enabling this international interchange.
At the same time, such support has made possible a manifold expansion of science, in numbers of scientists, institutions, and publications. The amount of scientific data has grown both because there are more scientists and because with technological advances, each of them can produce more data than ever before.
But as new technologies and working styles rapidly supersede older ones, altogether new problems are appearing that affect how data are handled and used. Some of these are technical; others are directly related to the substance of the science itself. Still others involve legal, economic, and social dilemmas that arise when the work of scientists is integrated into the daily life of the larger society. One such issue that is particularly important for science concerns the exchange of scientific data, especially exchange across national boundaries. Factors affecting exchange of data in the natural sciences, and the significance of important changes affecting access to data, are the central topic of this report.
In 1994 the U.S. National Committee for the Committee on Data for Science
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Acknowledgments
The study committee is very grateful to the many individuals who played a significant role in the completion of this study. The committee held its first meeting on January 20-22, 1995, and extends its thanks to the following individuals who provided briefings and other information from the study's sponsoring agencies: Gerald Barton and Christopher Miller of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; William Blanpied of the National Science Foundation; Joseph Bredekamp of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Kurt Molholm of the Defense Technical Information Center; John Rumble of the National Institute of Standards and Technology; and Elliot Siegel of the National Library of Medicine. At this meeting, the committee also received background briefings from other federal agency representatives, including Gesina C. (Cynthia) Carter, Wanda Farrell, and Jay Snoddy of the Department of Energy; Paul Kanciruk of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and Dorothy Bergamaschi of the Department of State.
The committee also extends its thanks to the issue area experts who briefed the committee at its September 22-24, 1995, meeting: Gershon Sher of the National Science Foundation, Gregory van der Vink of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, Carlos Gamboa of the Pan American Health Organization, Amy Gimble of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Lane Smith of the U.S. Agency for International Development participated in a roundtable discussion of data access issues in less developed countries; Hal Varian of the University of California at Berkeley discussed economic aspects of data transfer on the Internet; John Baumgarten of Proskauer, Rose, Goetz, and Mendelsohn, Mary Levering of the Library of Congress, Ed-
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Contents
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SCIENTIFIC ISSUES IN THE INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE OF DATA IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES |
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Data Trends, Opportunities, and Challenges in the Natural Sciences, |
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