Electronic publishing

[Peter Rauch]

I support Doug's position that we can move forward. I do question a
couple of _assumptions_ he makes in replying to A Sharkov, however. It
gets back to "what do we have to do to assure the systematics community
that the infrastructure is in place or at least is being put in
place".

> Date:         Wed, 13 Mar 1996 18:54:06 -0600
> From: Doug Yanega <dyanega at DENR1.IGIS.UIUC.EDU>
>
    [...snip, snip...]
> So? I get comments like that from libraries, too, telling me they don't
> have copies of the journal I want, and I'll have to wait two months for it
> to arrive on interlibrary loan.

Since there is a substantive library system infrastructure in place and
well tested, your chance of finding and getting that copy is pretty
good.  The question we must ask, if we believe we need to be able to
get those copies, is "does the existing electronic publishing medium
provide that infrastructral service too? If not, then how, when?"

I think the answer is no, it's not adequate.

> There's no medium which guarantees
> unlimited, instant access to everyone, everywhere. Besides, no one I'm
> aware of has ever advocated having only ONE copy of an electronic
> publication in existence, and the likelihood of every *electronic* copy of
> a work vanishing simultaneously is no greater than every *paper* version of
> a work being lost or destroyed simultaneously.

It more than a "disappearing act" of the e-document that must concern
us. It's also that there is not standard for naming the document
and locating it (uniquely and unambiguously). People are working on
that now for more than a few years. It's still a highly contentious
and evolving area of info sci technology that's not in place.

> ... Like Julian Humphries points out,
> reliable archiving is a matter of infrastructure and practice, not an
> inherent property of the medium.

Yes. Infrastructure and practice is a big portion of what the
systematics community must evaluate, first by developing its
specifications and requirements, and then by going out "in the market
place" and identifying viable solutions. I don't think the market has
a complete solution available for you today. What will be the consequences
of adopting partial solutions now? We need to answer that question
if we really value the product (publications) of the systematics community.

>         Given the situation the systematics community faces, I don't see
> why we shouldn't take every opportunity to improve the speed and decrease
> the costs of completing and disseminating our work.

Absolutely.

> I see no hurdles that
> are not trivial to overcome,

Trivial? Everyone has their own perception of what's "trivial" but some
of the best minds in the "archiving and information infrastructure
business" are still knocking heads over some of the stuff the
systematics community needs before its requirements will be adequately
satisfied (I am of course speculating on what those requirements are,
like the one to be able to locate a document, and the one to assure
that "links" among documents remain intact; but that is what I'm
asking everyone to do --speculate/define what is needed).

> and no legitimate benefits justifying a
> continued reliance on paper.

I think you give the current state of affairs in electronic world too
much stock. It might (does!) work for "trivial" publishing needs, but
I am not convinced that the systematics publication enterprise is a
trivial one.

> It's time to make the switch. Where do I sign up?

With your very next revision. Submit it to an electronic-only
publication. (But, to be fair, exploit some of the nice things
about today's technology, like those links to referenced
documents/files in far away places; make sure there are
some new names in the doc; don't just go "trivial").
Put that on your CV/job resume, and go apply for your next job.... ;>)
(oh, another small part of this infrastructure is probably your
employing institution's "attitude" about whether to count e-only-pubs
when reviewing your performance....)

> Doug Yanega

Yes, let's move ahead. But, let's not casually accept yet that it'll
be a trivial process.
Peter