Data publication: towards a database of
everything, a Commentary article published in BMC Research Notes, discusses the
changing nature of data publication, the challenges that face the Open Science
movement, and why the publication of primary scientific data is important to us
all.

BioMed Central has pioneered the open
access publishing model and there has been rapid movement in the field of
research publishing in the last few years, with open access publishing now
firmly in the mainstream. The aim of BMC Research Notes is to reduce the loss
suffered by the research community when results remain unpublished because they
do not form a sufficiently complete story to justify the publication of a full
research article. A key objective of the journal is to ensure that associated
data sets are published in standard, reusable formats whenever possible, and
are exposed to ensure that they are searchable and easily harvested for reuse.

This short Commentary article by Vincent
S Smith is an interesting and timely contribution to the literature and debate
surrounding publication of primary scientific data.

Rhian Cunliffe

Senior Journal Development Editor,
BMC-series journals