The adoption and growth of the scientific journal system has created a body of shared knowledge for our civilization, a collective long-term memory which is the basis for much of human progress. This system has changed surprisingly little in the last 300 years. The internet offers us the first major opportunity to improve this collective long-term memory, and to create a collective short-term working memory, a conversational commons for the rapid collaborative development of ideas.
If you support open access to peer-reviewed research articles and their preprints, then read my blog and newsletter. See what's been done and what you can do to help the cause. If you're not sure what open access is, then see my overview.