CINF 53

Advances in instrumentation and computation have caused an explosion of scientific data. However, this has not resulted in the expected growth of scientific databases and the reason for this can be clearly identified as a publication bottleneck. As a result of this situation, the user community is deprived of valuable information, and the funding bodies are getting a poor return for their investments!

Unlike other disciplines the chemical sciences have been reluctant or slow to embrace the 'preprint concept'. This poster outlines a pre-print procedure for the rapid and effective dissemination of structural information to the scientific community (eCrystals) which removes the lengthy peer review process that hampers traditional publication routes, but provides an alternative mechanism. eCrystals is built on a concept developed in the computer science community whereby an author may reveal archives of information to the public. eCrystals makes available all raw, derived and results data from a crystallographic experiment via a searchable and hierarchical system. Bibliographic and chemical metadata items, which are associated with the data, are published through standard protocols and therefore immediately and globally disseminated.

Hence scientific data may be disseminated in a manner that anyone wishing to utilise the information may access the entire archive of data related to it and assess its validity and worth. Recent advances in developing this approach to openly publish ANY form of chemical, or indeed scientific, data will also be presented.