21st Century publication

[Ron at]

Rather than fill up the mail box with various very good snippets from the
18th Century thread.  I'll just add this.

In 1998,  two "amateur" lepidopterists (one being me) and a third party non
naturalist, went through the research and process (and personal funds) to
form a formal non-profit scientific corporation and museum in accord with
al the state (SC) and Federal (USA) laws.   The International Lepidoptera
Survey (TILS) is the result.

Our flagship publication is The  Taxonomic Report (TTR).  Here is how we
function.

1)  TTR papers are published as single issues and all are mailed first
class domestic and air overseas.  This is not a "journal".   They are
individual "reports" ( 8 - 10 a year) and thus our informal "style" -- the
publication focus is low on eyewash but high on taxonomic substance.

2) At this point we have 71 subscribers ($45) a year and another 50
institutions and libraries who receive each issue.   However, we mail
between 200 to 500 copies of each issue on a rotation from our master mail
file.   At years end the subscribers and institutions/libraries all receive
that years Volume on CD-R.  (120 +/- CDs will go out in January 2002 of
Vol. 3.)

3) 95%  of our papers are submitted by email - and sent to reviewers by
email.  No paper, carbons etc.

4) We rarely use anonymous review.  We greatly prefer communication between
reviewers and authors.  There are many advantages to this.  Not the least
of which is speeding up the process immensely.   It usually takes only
about two months from article submission to paper publication.

5)  The first page of all issues are posted on our web site
http://www.tils-ttr.org
This gives world wide access to these paper's abstracts within 3 months of
article submission.

6) Various other related functions are found at the web site.  For example,
our photos section illustrates all type specimens from TTR papers.


Summation:
1) Articles are published on paper within two months of submission
2) Article abstracts are available on the Web within  two months of
publication
    a. Including type specimens.
3) Articles are distributed via over 100 CDs for permanent electronic
archiving in libraries and institutions annually.

We do not have an  mono-choice, we have a multi-avenue of publication and
the wise publisher will utilize all of them.  The basic unit in all cases
being a single computer file from which all the various media are produced.
The new box is not multi-choice ( either A or B or C or  D) it is
multi-function (all of the above).


Ron Gatrelle
TILS president
Charleston, SC - USA
http://www.tils-ttr.org