Electronic publishing

[Lammers]

Electronic publishing is in its absolute infancy - embryonic, really.
Let us not dash madly in.  Yes, a brave new world is opening before us,
but let's take it slowly, intelligently, trying our best to avoid
mistakes.  We as taxonomists have suffered enough trouble because our
predecessors did not give due thought to posterity.  Let us not be
guilty of the same sin.  If you think the RAF's bombing of the Berlin
herbarium caused taxonomists problems, imagine what a computer virus
could do to hundreds of names published solely via electronic media,
without some sort of hard copy back up.  If the last 50 years have
taught us one lesson, it is just how quickly the latest technology becomes
obsolete.  Can you imagine if, in a wave of enthusiasm following Marconi,
the Codes had been emended to allow publication of new taxa via radio
broadcast, with only wire spool recordings to back it up?  How would you
feel if you had protologues that were only available on wax cylinder
recordings, 78 rpm records, 8-track tape, or Beta videotape?  What seems
so very wonderful to us now, may well be tomorrow's joke.  Let's be prudent.

I never cease to be amazed how enthusiasm for "the latest thing" can often
make even the best of us suggest things that, in retrospect, we realize
were pretty silly.  In Krishtalka's defense, I sense that he is perhaps
playing advocatus diaboli, trying to generate discussion on current topics,
which is, after all, what Taxacom is all about.  If so, I salute him, and
am glad to have risen to the bait.

Thomas G. Lammers
Assistant Curator
Department of Botany
Field Museum of Natural History
Chicago IL 60605-2496 USA

lammers at fmnh.org

"I'm sorry, I couldn't think of a clever closing quote today."  - T. Lammers