[Taxacom] Demise of Phyloinformatics journal

[Richard Pyle]

Two great threads right now, about both of which I wish to comment more
extensively than I now have time for. Perhaps later in the weekend.  But
just a quick comment below.

Dick Jensen wrote:

> As I see it, when a publishing company expires, its product does not 
> automatically disappear.  I assume many subscribers (especially 
> libraries) have hardcopy on file.  However, when an on-line publisher 
> expires, there is the *potential* for everyting to disappear with it.  
> Electronic-only publication is more likely to result in loss of 
> original sources than is hardcopy publication.

I'm not sure how you are defining the word "potential" here; but in terms of
how publication dissemination actually works, I disagree with your
conclusion above.  Case in point: the demise of the Phyloinformatics.org
website/publisher by no means caused the all digital copies of the PDF file
of my Taxonomer article that was published therein to "automatically
disapper" any more than would be the case for a paper-based article.
Besides the (at least) three copies that have already been pointed out as
existing on the web.archive.org website, I know of at least two other copies
freely available online:

http://www2.bishopmuseum.org/natscidb/pdf/1080673318.pdf
http://taxondata.org/referencias/pdf/857.pdf

Five may not seem like a lot, but these are only the copies that I can
acquire for free in less than a minute of my time (that I happen to know
about).  It's infinitely larger than the number of copes of *any*
paper-based publication that I can acquire a paper copy of as quickly and
easily (and inexpensively).

I have no idea how many copies of that file exist on various hard drives
around the world, but I would like to think that there are many more than
five. Perhaps they are not quite as easily accessible as the five online
copies, but most of them are probably much easier to gain access to than the
average paper-based publication (e.g., an email to Taxacom or one of the
TDWG lists would likely yield multiple affirmative responses). The same is
likely true of almost every other article published originally in electronic
form.

Moreover, on the theme of "potential" -- the potential to make and
distribute multiple electronic copies of a PDF file *vastly* exceeds that of
a paper-based article.  If I had merely attached a PDF copy of the
aforementioned phyloinformatics artcle to this message (modesty forbids), I
would have almost instantly created hundreds of copies distributed all over
the planet (first in email server inboxes, then on local hard drives of
Taxacom subscribers).  Imagine how much more expensive and time consuming it
would have been to distribute a paper copy of the same article to every
single Taxacom subscriber....

The point is, if we are to invoke "potential", then I believe it's much
easier to make the case that electronic publications have a VASTLY greater
potential for longevity (permanency) of access than paper-based pubications.

Unfortunately, we're not even close to realizing that potential yet.  I
predict that within the next couple of decades, that potential will be much
better realized.

Having spent non-trivial amounts of time thinking about this issues, I've
found MANY reasons why electronic-based publication can increase the
potential of both distribution and permanency over paper-based publications.
But I have yet to identify more than one drawback to electronic publication
that cannot be very easily and cheaply solved in the near-term future.  That
one drawback is the need for a software-equipped electronic device to
translate a series of binary bits into something that can be interpreted by
human eyes.  However, I think it's safe to say that there are more such
electronic devices with appropriate software in existence today (as well as
the forseeable future) than there are copies of almost any paper-based
publication.

More on the two threads to follow later...

Aloha,
Rich

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Database Coordinator for Natural Sciences
  and Associate Zoologist in Ichthyology Department of Natural Sciences,
Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817
Ph: (808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252
email: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html