科学数据库的“公器”困境—当代史视角下的BIND兴衰

Abstract

科学数据库对学术研究的影响日益显著，其兴衰虽稍纵即逝，却是当代迅猛发展的科学技术与社会相互作用的生动写照。非营利性的生物分子相互作用数据库——BIND曾兴盛一时，却在数年后迅速衰落，免费获取的渠道最终走向并不成功的商业化之路。在此过程中，BIND既是建立学术新范式的一次尝试，也是受新兴技术如开放式科学数据库影响的结果。建立与运行大型科技类数据库并非只是学术共同体内部的一项纯粹的技术活动，政府与企业对科学数据库的态度很大程度上决定了BIND的命运。科学数据库的“公器”困境，表面上是不同科学家与政府、企业对科学数据库的不同态度，实质上反映了当代科学知识转为公共知识的社会成本。 The influence of scientific databases to research activities is becoming more and more significant. The rise and decline of a database could be transient, but vividly reflect the interactions between society and the booming development of science and technology. The non-profit Biomolecular In-teraction Network Database (BIND) was once very prosperous but faded just in a few years. Its open access concept finally ended with an unsuccessful commercialization. In this process, BIND tried to establish a new paradigm in the scholarly world. Meanwhile, it was also a result of the affection of emerging technologies like Open Science data. Establishing and running a massive scientific database is not a pure technique activity within the scholarly community. The attitudes of gov-ernments and enterprises determined the fate of BIND to a large degree. Considering scientific da-tabase as a “public instrument” leads to a dilemma. The apparently different attitudes towards scientific database among various scientists, governments, and enterprises, in fact, reveal the social cost of the transition from scientific knowledge to public knowledge in the contemporary era.