sciencepublishing

I spoke last week at an event at the British Library about the future of the scientific article. It was a lively event - lots of friendfeed and twitter reactions - and it got me thinking a lot about the way we use publication in science. In my conversations with research staff and leaders at the BL, I ran across this statement. Publishers frequently claim four functions: registration (when was an idea stated?), certification (is the idea original, has it been "proved" to satisfactory peer review?), dissemination (delivery), and preservation of the record. The journal thus provides for both…