Cornell’s e-print arXiv of scientific papers will evolve from a simple database to a place where “authors, articles, databases and readers talk to each other.”

Jean Bernard Minster is a University of California-San Diego distinguished professor of geophysics and chair of the International Council for Science’s World Data System Scientific Committee (ICSU WDSSC). He has been involved with data issues for over two decades, through the National Research Council.

In early 2005, researchers affiliated with Hall B wanted to transfer the raw data from a recent experiment, the g11 run, from the tape silo to computers offsite. Had they been able to simply send the data out through Jefferson Lab’s network connection — with no one else sending e-mail, downloading papers or reading physics news on the web…