Electronic publishing

[George at]

Electronic publishing - isn't that what we already do? With the
exception of a few specialty printers, mechanical typesetting has been
dead for a decade (or more). Archiving electronic publications is an
issue that libraries must and are addressing. No, we wouldn't want
descriptions of new species to exist solely on Internet servers (or even
mirrored at several). But there is no reason why libraries cannot write
an electronic "paper" to CD, along with other papers in an electronic
journal, assign a call number, and put the CD on the shelf. Accessing
such an archive is really no different than using a microfiche reader. I
think that we can be assured that the industry will maintain backwards
compatibility for CD technology. This is the future (present) of
libraries, of archiving.

The cost of such archiving is a tiny fraction of what it currently
requires to convert our "papers" to paper, and then distribute in
limited runs, and there is virtually no limit to the number of color
images that be included (or frog calls, or video of lemur locomotion;
libraries have been archiving sound and video for a number of years).
Aside from the archiving issue, as was suggested by James Reveal, the
electronic journal could reside on several servers, and be accessible
well beyond those archiving libraries. Is there any doubt that
accessibility of biodiversity information is critical for biodiversity
preservation? Since last October and December, the Madagascar Conspectus
project has made richly illustrated papers on phytogeography and
vegetation classification accessible over the Web. Based upon Web usage
stats, far more readers have accessed these papers (and continue to
access these papers) than would have (will, when they appear later this
year in paper format, without the color images) had they only appeared
in paper format.

The time to move to "electronic publishing", to petition our
professional societies to inaugurate electronic journals that would
incorporate new species descrptions, is now. Society meetings will
convene in the coming months, and if we start the process now, all of
the mechanisms should certainly be in place in time to modify the Code
of Botanical Nomenclature in St. Louis in 1999.

George E. Schatz
Associate Curator
Africa and Madagascar Department
Missouri Botanical Garden
P.O. Box 299
St. Louis MO 63166
schatz at mobot.org