Nomenclator Zoologicus Volume 9 - errors in author

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

From: "Paul Kirk" p.kirk at CABI.ORG :
Both IPNI Authors and the subset for fungal authors include as many 'real'
variants as are found in the literature and both human search interfaces
will lead a user to the recommended form.

***
Clearly this is not true for IPNI for the category I mentioned. To make
sure, I entered "Fr. Allem." and "H.B.K.", both of which are abbreviations
that have been widely used in the literature and are still used in some
publications.  Neither gives any result in the IPNI database and you won't
find through IPNI what the currently recommended forms are.  In such cases
you have to know, or do some reverse engineering.

Integrating these (somehow) in the database, or running a separate list,
would be a convenience to many users.
* * *

I say 'real' for we have not tried to invent all possible transliteration
for e.g. some of the more complex Russian names. The published Brummitt &
Powell included all the 'rules' and rationale - included at the authors of
fungal names link is a subset of this information; the IPNI site does not
have this (yet?).

I would suggest that any zoologist who may be interested in developing a
comparable list for animal authors would do well to read these 'rules' - it
worked for 'botanists'. I reject the suggestion that authors names should be
cited as published - standardization leads to clarity - and many authors
were not in control of how there names were cited in publications, that
depending on whether the type setter had the required bit of metal in his
case; this is apparently still a problem for some publishers even with
unicode available ;-)

Paul

***
I certainly agree with the recommendation that zoologists take careful note
of the book by Brummitt & Powell. Would be well worth it!

Best, Paul