Electronics vs. Paper

[Finn N. Rasmussen]

 A.Latiff Mohamed-LESTARI <latiff at pkrisc.cc.ukm.my> wrote:

>Dear Fellow taxonimists

> We are from the less developed part of the globe with regards to IT. Some
> of our herbaria could not afford the hard copies (journal), not
> even NOVON of Missouri, let alone this idiotic machine called computer and
> email. We have not been able to follow the publication of new things

I am afraid that  one years subscription of a decent taxonomic journal
soon will cost as much as a nice computer.  It is the soaring prices
that threaten the status of journals as the most important
medium for communication.  Electronic  media will soon take over - if not
for other reasons,  then simply because they are cheaper.  This will
actually be an enormous advantage for scientists who doesn't work
close to a very big and rich library.

Many new species are published in obscure and inaccessible journals.
It has often been suggested (at least in Botany) that there should be
just ONE journal for official publishing of new taxa and names.  This
would perhaps be too difficult to handle  in practize, but what
about ONE official mandatory database with descriptions, specimen
citations and perhaps also illustrations and due references to the
officially valid paper-publication?

PS: Why don't we start the "holy war"  (which I prefer to call a
"holy mission") with making the nomenclature codes available on WWW?

Finn Rasmussen

                      Finn N. Rasmussen
                      Botanical Laboratory, University of Copenhagen
                      Gothersgade 140, DK-1123 Copenhagen K., Denmark
                      Phone: +45 35 32 21 55   Fax: +45 33 13 91 04
                      Web homepage: http://www.bot.ku.dk
                      Email: FinnR at bot.ku.dk