[Taxacom] publishing (Re: ZooBank reality check)

[Doug Yanega]

Richard Jensen wrote:

>Paul Kirk wrote:
>  > I'm not saying it's simple but there has to be some sort of 'evolution'.
>>
>>  A few points:
>>
>>  Why publish in journals which charge $2500?
>>  
>I didn't say one should.  Some journals may only charge $100.  The point
>is, not everyone can afford to pay such a fee.

Then let's abandon all journals that charge any publication fees. Do 
journals exist to serve us, or do we publish simply to keep the 
journals in business? Does the phrase "the tail wagging the dog" come 
to mind? If we have problems with journals holding copyright, and all 
this other nonsense, then let's DUMP the journals once and for all, 
and start a copyright-free online taxonomic publication site. If the 
taxonomic journals vanish into oblivion as a result, then so be it. 
WE come out ahead, and that's what counts (unless you're a taxonomist 
who runs a journal, in which case it's a conflict of interests). We 
can do better with electronic distribution of print-on-demand files, 
with a few hardcopies deposited, even, if no one is willing to revise 
the Codes.

>  > Where are the distribution cost when it's electronic and not thin sheets
>>  of wood - if the latter is required (for effective publication/being
>>  available) then local printing is the solution not centralized.
>>  
>Well, somebody has to pay for a connection to the internet and IP support.

Trivial - further, let's imagine that everyone who pays for a 
subscription to (or publishing in) a print journal stops paying, and 
gives 1/10th of that amount to a single online journal. That would 
more than cover the operating budget (and almost non-existent 
printing costs), at 1/10th the net community-wide cost. Just think of 
the hundreds of thousands of dollars we are cumulatively presently 
wasting on subscription and publication fees paid to print journals, 
and imagine putting 90% of those funds back into our research, while 
the remaining fraction of those resources supports a copyright-free 
publication venue for all.

>This is a problem that many societies face (I'm not talking about you or
>me publishing our own work independently).  Currently, the codes require
>hardcopy publication, so what are the options?

The best option, obviously, is to revise the Codes! Having 2,000 
specialized taxonomic societies each with their own journal is 
ridiculous and incredibly wasteful. You can have one universal 
publication venue, and if you have specialized interests, then all 
you have to do is make your subscription filter specialized to suit 
your tastes (e.g. "Show only articles on Carabid beetles"). But this 
means reducing the publication format to a digital one, with or 
without the blessing of the Codes. Which, ironically, means papers 
can have more total content (no page limits), better quality content 
(color photos for all), more *types* of content (complete data 
matrices to download, full molecular sequence data, video and sound 
files, etc.), faster review times, more reviewers per paper, and a 
pile of additional benefits, all for LESS than what it now costs us 
to publish via print journals.

>  > Load publication costs into grants - $2500 is insignificant compared to
>>  staff costs for a 3 year project.
>>  
>
>I guess you live in the best of all possible worlds - everyone has grant
>money to support their research.  That's not the world most of us live in.

All the more reason to switch to electronic distribution of 
print-on-demand files. Vastly cheaper for everyone involved.

>  > Pdf's are a click away from a word processing document.
>>  
>Of course it is - if we have access to the facilities to do that. 
>Again, you are assuming that everyone has access to the same facilities,
>which is clearly not the case (see Rod's previous post - his institution
>doesn't provide access to the journal in question).  My institution has
>a very restricted JSTOR subscription (no systematics journals included)
>and does not subscribe to BioOne.  I sometimes have to pay a fee if I
>want to see something "right now".

Then that's a bad subscription model - you're assuming that we would 
knowingly adopt a BAD business model, should we launch an online 
taxonomic journal. Why assume that "for profit" is the only possible 
business model for taxonomic publishing?

>  > I have a server which cost about $500 that runs five web sites, all
>>  database driven (SQL Server) including the IF web site (million hits per
>>  month) and the British Fungi site with a 1.2 million record table. Is it
>>  slow ... No, do the CPU's sit around doing nothing 99.9999999% of the
>>  time (like modern servers) ... No, are the disks all but empty (like
>>  modern servers) ... No, but there is still enough space for everything
>>  (and expansion) in 40GB.
>>  
>
>Who paid for the server and who pays fro replacement and updates? Not
>everyone is savvy enough to run a personal server nor has access to
>someone who will do it gratis.

It doesn't take that much, if every taxonomist in the world is 
publishing via a single online journal; volume is not an issue in the 
digital domain. There's no reason a digital journal can't publish 
1,000 papers in a day, if that's the actual number that people are 
writing and reviewing. All it takes then is one properly mirrored 
server to accomodate the entire taxonomic community (or, at worst, 
one server each for prokaryotes, fungi, botany, zoology...)

Peace,

-- 

Doug Yanega        /Dept. of Entomology         /Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521-0314
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82