[Taxacom] Demise of Phyloinformatics journal

[Richard Pyle]

Dick Jensen wrote:

> All materials, but let's stick to paper and electronic for 
> this discussion, have the potential to be lost, forgotten, 
> accidentally or deliberatly destroyed.  For electronic files, 
> the potential for that to happen is greater than for paper 
> copy.  Why?  If there are a thousand paper copies of a 
> journal distributed to individuals and libraries around the 
> world, then it is extremely unlikely that anything could 
> cause complete loss of all copies simultaneously.  However, 
> depending on the form in which electronic copies are stored, 
> a massive electronic "storm" could destroy all copies in any 
> single location and, if deliberatley carried out (as in a 
> war), could eliminate all copies in a variety of locations.

Well....yes and no.  In the paradigm that all copies of an electronic
document are stored in one location, then yes, that location could be
destroyed.  The exact same thing is true in the case where all copies of a
paper document are stored in one location.  The question is, to what extent
is this scenario (i.e., all copies of a document stored in one location)
more likely to be true for electronic publication, than for paper
publication.  I would have to wager "not very". It wouldn't really be
"publication" if the opportunity to download copies (either for free or at a
price) wasn't available.

I conceed that there are probably fewer distributed copies of an average
digitially published document than an average paper-based publication,
simply because the act of paper-based publication is so expensive that it
only makes economic sense in the paradigm that hundreds or thousands of
copies are simultaneously generated.  Ironically, it is the low cost and
ease with which digital publications can be copied and distributed that
*allows* them to exist in lower numbers.  But this is where "potential"
clearly favors the digital over the paper.  Electronic publication is in its
infancy still, so the potential hasn't come close to being realized.  But
given that most or all of the technology already exists to relaize the
potential, now it's just an issue of establishing standards and implementing
protocols. 
  
> Yes, you could immediatly send several thousand copies of 
> your reprint to those of us on various list serves.  How many 
> of us would save the copy we received?  

I suspect the same number that would save our paper reprints that we mail
out.

> And, how many of us 
> are at institutions that will permanently archive our 
> electronic holdings? 

If there is a discrepancy between paper and electronic publications in this
regard, I am certain it is a temporary condition while institutions learn
how to archive digital documents.

> How many copies would be saved in a 
> semi-permanent electronic format?  Is there a truly permanent 
> electronic format?  

Only to the extent that there is a truly permanent paper format.  Yes, I
agree that the average hard drive does not out-last the average paper
document.  But the paper document gradually degrades over time, whereas
*precisely identical* copies of any digital document can be forwarded into
perpetuity, provided someone is willing to forward it.  As Bryan Heidorn
pointed out in his post, paper-based documents exist across long periods of
time only because people (libraries) make the effort to care for them.  And
I can guarantee you that the cost of copying a digital document from an old
hard drive to a new hard drive once every five years is a LOT less than the
time, enegery, and resources that go into preserving a paper document for
the same period of time.  Once again, potential favors the digital document.

> I have hundreds of 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch 
> floppies with data.  I can still read all of these, but 
> that's only because I have deliberately saved the appropriate 
> drives and computers.  This tecnology is on the way out and 
> once these drives are no longer available, these electronic 
> "archives" become useless.

But why haven't you copied these documents to a modern hard drive?????

> Experience tells me that most of us do not keep moving old 
> lectronic files to new systems.  This is where potential 
> comes into play - if proper archiving, backing up, and 
> upgrading don't occur, then it matters not how many 
> electronic copies are buried in the dust bins of my or my 
> library's collections.

And this seems to be the crux of our disagreement.  I imagine that durung
the first century of the existence of papyrus, the vast majority of users
thereof didn't really understand what was necessary to ensure long-term
persistence of their scribed documents.  Digital electronic computers have
been around far less than a century, and in the hands of us users only for a
couple of decades.  I don't think it's fair to judge the potential for
persistence of digital vs. paper documents based on a comparison of
centuries-old vs. decades-old technology.  And I am certain it will not
require centuries for us to establish standard protocols for the persistence
of digital documents. I doubt it will be more than decade or two, and
perhaps much less.  Maybe our only disagreement is that we're talking about
"potential" in different time scales?

> I suspect that eventually memory will become so cheap and 
> plentiful that everything in the Library of Congress will be 
> able to be stored on a single memory device; but that's not 
> possible now (as far as I know).

Pretty close, actually.  I can buy several terabytes of storage space for
less than half of what a 10-MB hard drive used to cost.  This isn't enough
to hold image files of every page in the Library of Congress, but I bet it's
enough to hold all of the textual information.
  
> And, of course, archivers like JSTOR are making paper 
> obsolete.  But are we yet at a point where we want to put all 
> of our eggs in a single basket?  I don't think so.

Though I disagree with the "one basket" perspective, I agree with the notion
that we're not there yet.  But we are VERY close!

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