obscure publication

[JOSEPH E. LAFERRIERE]

I thank the several people who responded to my inquiry, on-list
and off-. One person said that my personal hero in botanical
history (Rafinesque) published in places so obscure that
they would have been totally lost had he not used them
to wallpaper his own house.

> * and aren't you seeking a case where such a name was preserved by being
>  cited in a publication that was preserved for posterity, whereas the
>  original description is likely forever lost? At least that's what I
>  thought you were looking for.

That would be one good example.
   To return to my original point: for many years major
institutions such as Kew, the British Museum, the Smithsonian,
etc., have been attempting to collect copies of obscure
publications for their libraries. There may be a few that they
have overlooked, but the number is probably very small. Hence
to reply to the rappoteurs who criticized my proposal: the
"unforseen and unforseeable consequences" of accepting my
proposal are negligible. I certainly hope you are reading this.
   With respect to older publications, I think that the
ICZN handles this better than the ICBN. Please correct me if
I am wrong, but to my understanding under the ICZN a name
is automatically dead if it has not been used in 50 years.
Under the ICBN, in the case of the resurrection
of a overlooked old name, one must write a formal proposal
to the interntaional committee explaining why you believe a
name should be rejected. In the meantime, until the committee
gets around to voting on the matter, you are in limbo as to
whether or not you should use the name.
   Concerning desktop publishing and other modern ways of
producing obscure names, I agree that something needs to be done
to deal with this. I feel that if an honest effort is made
to distribute the information to the scientific community
at large, fine. These reports I hear of people "publishing"
names but then refusing to share the information with others,
even when offered payment, is reprehensible.
   Someone suggested peer review as a criterion for effective
publication. Ouch. This is another messy subject. As I said
in respect to a different subject a day or two ago, you
need to define your terms very precisely. Does pre-submistion
review (such as for Mycotaxon and Phytologia) count? Suppose
three grad students set up some desktop publishing and
review each other's papers? Does this count? These are not
unanswerable questions, but they do need answers before one
can contemplate ammending the code.

--
Dr. Joseph E. Laferriere
who believes very strongly that one should
not have opinions.