Useful life of CDROM

[Richard Zander]

J.N. makes an important point from a vantage of perfectly justified
pessimism. The only way to make information available and truly accessible
long-term is to expect an e-library somewhere to keep moving publications
from old media to new...floppies to CD's, CD's to hard disks, hard disks to
flash memory, flash memory to quantum leaps or whatever, if possible both
technically and financially.

Botanical nomenclature (as will be reviewed by upcoming Congress in St.
Louis) will almost assuredly not be burdened by electronic new names, now
not easily juggled across media and not easily searchable (such as with XML
meta-directories and the like). I'm hoping that in six years, however, rules
may be changed to allow electronic publication of new names, which would
greatly further taxonomic progress. For that to happen, we need:

1. Some changes in the Code, such as how to recognise and cite an
e-publication, what about pagination, etc.

2. Publishers and editors settling on a standard manner of publication (not
fixed to a proprietary format); perhaps HTML 4.0 and XML and J/MPEG or maybe
not (see http://www.tesol.net/annodata.html for University of Virginia
efforts with SGML and TEI). Plus an actual operating e-journal in which to
publish.

3. At least two independent free e-libraries at well-established
not-for-profit institutions, perhaps libraries at major systematics
institutions, dedicated to indefinite archiving of e-journals in which new
names are published. These e-libraries may charge for providing hard copies
and for translating old formats to new, but will provide gratis Web access
to all the new taxonomic e-journal articles. If the e-journals want to
charge, that charge should be on the authors or on the professional societal
membership for some value-added service: free library access to readers is
essential.

I think that an operating e-journal and an operating free e-library  must be
in place before the botanical Code is changed. I also think that just
because zoological rules allow certain actions, this is not encouragement to
do such things. Zoologists would profit in the long run by avoiding
publication of new names on media that is not freely available, or in a
proprietary format, or not definitely stored in a long-term archiving
environment.

R. Zander

----- Original Message -----
From: John Noyes <jsn at MAILSERVER.NHM.AC.UK>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Friday, July 16, 1999 4:38 AM
Subject: Re: Useful life of CDROM

Paraphrasing the new code, it says that a new taxonomic name published on a
> CDrom will be available if on the CDrom it is stated that five copies of
the
> CDrom are deposited in five different public institutions and the CDrom is
> freely available and all other conditions of availability are met. To my
way
> of thinking the decision to accept availability of names published on
CDrom
> was taken almost unilaterally by the Commission without adequate
> consultation with the taxonomic community. The availability of names
> published on CDrom was not included on drafts of the code that were
> circulated prior to its publication although it was mentioned on their web
> site, but that seems to have been missed by most taxonomists. I wonder
what
> the general view is out there. My feeling is that it is a retrograde step
> because firstly this will make it easier for incompetent or malicious
> taxonomists to publish names freely at almost no cost without any
"quality"
> control and secondly because of doubts that exist about the longevity of
> CD's and the capability of being able to read them.
>
> It is impossible to do anything now about changing this in the Code
because
> the new revised edition will be published in a week or two (although I am
> keeping my fingers crossed that it has been withdrawn at the last minute),
> but it would be interesting to see what sort of feeling there is out there
> about this important issue which I think should have been discussed more
> widely by the taxonomic community before inclusion in the new Code.


Richard H. Zander, Curator of Botany
Buffalo Museum of Science
1020 Humboldt Pkwy
Buffalo, NY 14211 USA
email: rzander
@sciencebuff.org
voice: 716-895-5200 x 351