The Web is quickly becoming the only scientific publishing platform that matters. We've seen the dramatic changes that this kind of shift has caused in other industries; what does this shift mean for the future of scientific publishing?

Jean-Claude Bradley's talk, although not specifically providing the answer, offers a fascinating look at the kinds of problems that the successful scientific publishers of the future will need to solve.

Note: if you can't view the embedded video above, this link should work.

The science blogging anthology The Open Laboratory 2007 is now available for purchase. As mentioned earlier, The Open Laboratory was created to promote the 2008 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference to be held on January 19, 2008. Chapter 4.3 contains the article "SMILES and Aromaticity: Broken?", which originally appeared last year on Depth-First. Details are available in the original announcement.

The Open Laboratory's publisher is remarkable. Lulu is a service that lets people of average means publish and sell their own books. The key to the entire operation is that rather than being printed in large batches, books are printed on demand.

Got a great idea for a book that will likely have a devoted but small audience? You too can publish a high-quality product and sell it through an established, worldwide distribution network. No contracts, no agents, no years of trying to find a publisher. Just do it.

Consider these chemistry-related titles currently offered by Lulu, none of which has the mass market needed to get a major publisher to back them:

• Basic Meat Chemistry

• The Psychonomicon

• The Chemistry of Autumn Colors

• The Chemy Called Al

Having bought one Lulu title recently, Desktop Java Live, I can say that both the experience and finished product are nearly indistinguishable from buying books at Amazon.

Let's hear it for The Long Tail!

A recent Depth-First article titled "SMILES and Aromaticity: Broken?" has been selected to appear in the science blogging anthology "The Open Laboratory 2007." This article, along with the 51 other winning entries, will be published as a book that can be purchased from Amazon.com. The book, the second in a series, is aimed at promoting the 2008 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference to be held on January 19, 2008.

Are science blogging anthologies like Open Laboratory just a passing fad, or the beginning of something much larger? Only time will tell. What's clear is that the means of production and distribution of scientific information are getting cheaper by the year, resulting in an increasingly large range of choices for readers. If other communication-related industries such as movies, music, software, and newspapers offer any indication of what lies ahead, small may well be the new big in scientific publication - and not a moment too soon.