18th Century mentality in the 21st Century

[B. J. Tindall]

Sounds like REGISTRATION to me........and I thought zoology and botany were
against that!! :-)
Brian

At 10:32 15.11.2001 -0800, Doug Yanega wrote:
>I would like to second this comment, and remind Chris (and I believe
>he'll recall this if he thinks about it for a moment) that I have in
>the past been - and still am - a firm and vocal proponent of
>electronic publication AND the establishment of an organization such
>as Hendrik describes. What I want and what we have to work with are,
>however, different things.
>
>Though this is probably an unpopular thing to say, I believe it is
>absolutely necessary, for the future of our science, that we either
>establish or designate a single agency which will act as THE
>universal nomenclatural clearing-house; this will be the SOLE agency
>with which all new names must be registered, and it must also be
>empowered to review, publish, archive, and disseminate new
>*electronic* taxonomic works (in addition to the registration and
>archival functions of external publications). Done properly, this
>could be accomplished without even requiring authors to pay fees, and
>by simple natural selection would likely become the *primary* place
>for all new names to be published. Wouldn't you prefer to publish in
>a free journal which could make your work available to everyone on
>the entire web within 2 days of receiving the referee's final
>comments?
>
>The "archive" step is the true bone of contention, and this can be
>accommodated (at present) using various media such as CDs (and even
>small-run printing of hardcopies distributed to major libraries if
>people are still paranoid). An agency which is dedicated to this
>task, and supported indefinitely, will BY DEFINITION be committed
>from its inception to *perpetuation* of all archives, including
>upgrades to newer and better storage media as the technology
>advances. No more whining about "Oh, we don't *trust* CDs to be
>permanent!" or "Just look at all those spools of 8-track tape, or
>5.25 inch floppies, or whatever other obsolete archives there are out
>there, now nearly unretrievable!". Just because someone else 25 years
>ago didn't expect or budget for media upgrades doesn't mean we would
>have to make the same stupid mistake TODAY. We do, amazingly, know
>better now.
>
>Peace,
>--
>
>Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
>Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
>phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>            http://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>


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