On demand printing: Take or you`re out!

[christian thompson]

A couple of points should be clear. 1) The International Code of Zoological
Nomenclature has since the 3rd edition outlawed "on demand printing."
However, the Code has recognized CDROM as valid for publication.

We, the diptera community, have already started a CDROM based serial, "The
Diptera Data Dissemination Disk"  (volume 1 was out last February, volume 2
is in production) as both a cheap and fast way to publish PEER-REVIEWed
scientific contributions on Diptera. We also have a WWW site at diptera.org

2) But as for "the IZNC has already a group of scientists "thinking" how to
resolve these points. If they are not, they should start now." I will only
say that I was among some on ICZN who were thinking about these things, as
evidenced by the draft version of the 4th edition. However, the consensus
reading of the community reaction to that draft which included registration,
etc., was that it is highly unlikely that  ideas like mandatory
"peer-review," "registration of names," etc., will ever be in the ICZN.
Simply put, many zoologists want to retain the freedom to publish what ever
they think is science, in what ever "journal" they like (or create), which
may or may not be widely disseminated, etc. As for registration, the
argument was because the Zoological Record does such a poor job now in
indexing the "zoological literature," it is unthinkable to make it a
requirement that zoologists take the responsibility for seeing that the ZR
index their work if it isn't already being index, etc. I for one never
understood why some zoologists want to publish new taxa, but don't want
their colleagues to know that they have done so! Oh, well ...

3) However, despite this attitude, I see smart scientists using the best
and most appropriate media, which is, at this moment, to create WWW taxon
pages, which are then placed both on the Internet for free, fast, universal
availability, and "published" in a CDROM serial, such as our DDDD.  These
taxon pages will be peer-reviewed before they appear on either medium.The
requirements of the code are met by publishing on CDROM, but accessibility
is solved by the Internet.









F. Christian Thompson
Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D. C. 20560
(202) 382-1800 voice
(202) 786-9422 FAX
cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov