Editorial

To know or not to know: archiving and the under-appreciated historical value of data

David Covarrubias¹ , Maurice Van Emburgh¹ , Hassan R Naqvi¹ , Christian Schmidt^1,2 and Shawn Mathur¹

¹  Section of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas, 1 University Station, A 5000, Austin, TX 78712, USA

²  Molecular Cancer, Biomed Central Ltd., Middlesex House, 34-42 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4LB, UK

author email corresponding author email

Molecular Cancer 2008, 7:18doi:10.1186/1476-4598-7-18

Published:	11 February 2008

Abstract

Surplus goods, produced by a community, allow individuals to dedicate their efforts to abstract problems, while enjoying the benefits of support from the community. In return, the community benefits from the intellectual work, say, efficiently producing goods or profound medical aid. In further elevating quality of life, we need to understand nature and biology on the most detailed level. Inevitably, research costs are increasing along with the need for more scientists to specialize their efforts. As a result, a vast amount of data and information is generated that needs to be archived and made openly accessible with the permission to re-use and re-distribute. With economies undergoing crises and prosperity in an almost cyclic manner, it seems that funding for science and technology follows a similar pattern. Another aspect to the problem of the loss of data is the human propensity, at the level of each individual researcher, to passively discard data in the course of daily life and through a career. In a typical laboratory, significant amounts of information is still stored on disks in file cabinets or on isolated computers, and is lost when a research group disbands. Being conscientious to one's data, to see that it reaches a place in which it can persist beyond the lifespan of any one individual requires responsibility on the part of its creator.