Electronic publishing

[Andrey Sharkov]

On Wed, 13 Mar 1996  Julian Humphries in reply to my statement that -
"We know that there is no problem reading a book  published 100 (and many
more) years ago. I don't think anybody will argue with that" - wrote:

>I will. Literally hundreds if not thousands of species have been and
>are continuing to be described in paper journals and other
>publications that have been or will be "lost" to science.  Journals
>that exist for a few years, have limited dissemination and then
>disappear are every bit as transitory as a WWW site that goes away or
>a "old" CD that requires a special reader.  I argue there is no more
>than a semantic distinction between the two cases, paper books
>sitting in box in New Dehli (or LA or London, whatever) have
>effectively disappeared.

The issue I wanted to address wasn't the possibility to FIND the
information, but the ability to READ it. A book published 100 years ago DOES
NOT REQUIRE any special technology to be read, and WILL NOT require it 100
years from now. ANY electronic media REQUIRES a special technology to
retrieve the information form it, and it WILL require it in the future. And
nobody can guarantee that such technology will exist then. That dependency
on a special technology makes any electronic media more vulnerable than
paper, and the information stored on any electronic media is more likely to
be lost (without quotation marks) than one stored on paper. If somebody
finds a box with paper books in New Dehli in the year 2096, I am pretty sure
that he/she will be able to read them. What about a box with CDs? May be,
may be not.

Sincerely,

Andrey Sharkov
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Andrey Sharkov
Associate Curator                               Phone: (614) 292-2730
Department of Entomology                  FAX: (614) 292-7774
Museum of Biodiversity                       INTERNET:  Sharkov.1 at osu.edu
The Ohio State University                                          or
1315 Kinnear Rd.
asharkov at magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Columbus, OH 43212
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