Do we need a new Unisist? Old comments on a trip back to the future from the distant year of 1971

Abstract

Cristóbal Urbano published a well-documented, intelligent and thought-provoking ThinkEPI note recalling Unesco’s Unisist programme, which aimed to establish a global system fors scientific information. The note perfectly summarises the program’s content and intentions, ending by a question about whether international policies regarding documentary outputs generated by research are still necessary today. This note is not a response to Urbano one, but rather the opinion that such international policy already exists, but it is being developed under different parameters than those of the 70s and 80s of the last Century. I believe that the open science movement is based on the same assumptions and has the same objectives as Unisist, buy I highlight three major differences: the scientific information that today includes data, the way of information is used has changed as its abundance drives usage toward what is most relevant, easiest or most convenient to use, and the system created to make this possible is not centralized but relies on interoperability between federated nodes.