"We have to do better at producing tools to support the whole research cycle-from data capture and data curation to data analysis and data visualization. Today, the tools for capturing data both at the mega-scale and at the milli-scale are just dreadful. After you have captured the data, you need to curate it before you can start doing any kind of data analysis, and we lack good tools for both data curation and data analysis. Then comes the publication of the results of your research, and the published literature is just the tip of the data iceberg ... a lot of data that is collected but not curated or published in any systematic way." Jim Gray, pioneering computer scientist, speaking to the National Research Council-Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, 11 January, 2007. Gray saw data-intensive science as a new, fourth paradigm for science after the earlier stages - 1) experimental, 2) theoretical, and 3) computational.

The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, edited by Tony Hey, Stewart Tansley and Kristin Tolle, is a collection of essays which expand on the vision of Jim Gray for a new, fourth paradigm of discovery. They discuss data-intensive science and how it can be fully realised. The book can be downloaded, for free, either in full, or by chapter, from here. Sections include:

• Part 1: Earth and Environment
• Part 2: Health and Wellbeing
• Part 3: Scientific Infrastructure
• Part 4: Scholarly Communication

The book can also be purchased as a paperback. There is also a fourth paradigm blog.