Unlimited Access—Limitless Success
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
“Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” —Samuel Johnson
There is a long-standing tradition in the area of scientific publication that material presented in a publication is made available to interested parties within the community. Sharing this material serves a twofold purpose: First, anything presented in the literature can be duplicated; second, and more importantly, others can add to the information base using these materials, thus more rapidly increasing our understanding of a field, disease, biological process, etc.. Although this has been a general tenet of the scientific community, there are and will continue to be cases where individuals prefer to maintain research information in a more proprietary way and for a variety of reasons, many of which are equally useful to society.
There are many reasons why individuals wish to publish their work, including the wish to be recognized as the person who accomplished a particular goal or made a discovery, or as a means to advertise a product. The desire to “make your mark” in print is a major part of all publications, especially when careers can and do rely on the number and type of publications an individual has to his or her credit. Regardless, the main point of publishing in the scientific literature is to educate and to increase the community's ability to further work in that area; the availability of data and tools from such publications is an essential part of the process.
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