[Taxacom] Darwinius and electronic publication yet again

[Richard Pyle]

> Another posting on TAXACOM says that Ellinor Michel of ICZN 
> has advised that  'numerous identical and durable' printed 
> copies are needed for a publication to be acceptable currently. 
> 
> Defining the middle term should be easy, but 'numerous' = 
> ?how many: >2? >3? an arbitrary number such as 5 or 10?   -  
> and  'durable' = what?
> In this context, CDs are scarcely durable (in archival/ 
> scholarly library terms) given that their projected life span 
> is measured in decades not centuries.

These are excellent questions, and ones that the ICZN Commissioners have
been wrestling with themselves for years now. 

As for "numerous", there seems to be a general (though reluctant)
acknolwegement that "numerous", strictly speaking, means "more than one" (Oy
vey!)  However, on the "recommendation" (i.e., not Code-compliance) side of
things, it seems like "50" has been bounced around as a reasonable number.

There is some indirect justification for going with "at least 5", as this is
stipulated in Article 8.6 (http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp?article=8),
but you'd be hard-pressed to get a majority of Commissioners to see this
indirect inference as constituting a legitimate definition of "numerous".

I think the word "durable" simply implies physical copies (as opposed to
"electronic signals", as used in Art. 9.8).  Most people assume it applies
to CD-ROMs, but this really could apply to any physical device used to
disseminate information (stone tablets, stamped metal sheets, drafting
velum, CD-ROM's, memory sticks, iPods, etc.).

We would all like to believe that "durable" also implies "capable of
withstanding the ravages of time", etc. -- but, alas, this word is also
absent from the glossary.

There is another word that needs definition: "obtainable" (Arts. 8.1.2 &
8.1.3).  Believe it or not, this one actually is the one most open to
interpretation (at least from my perspective).
 
> I am not aware, 
> however, of any electronic archiving system that can 
> guarantee longevity over centuries not decades for even a 
> commercially published online journal - if anyone knows of 
> one, I'd be interested to hear of it. 

Obviously, no such system can purport to "guarantee" such longevity for
electronic documents.  But if I were a betting man (and I'm not), I'd be
looking at roughly even odds for the obtainability of the PLoS PDF for the
description of Darwinius 250 years from now, vs. original copies of Linnaeus
1758 (or, for you, Linnaeus 1753) today.  Actually, it's not a realistic
comparison, because the PDF will almost certainly either be absolutely
unobtainable (collapse of human civilization, disappearance of affordable
energy, absence of any human being even remotely interested in biology,
etc., etc.) or utterly ubiquitous and instantanously accessible (think:
"Google in 250 years").  I find it hard to imagine some middle ground
between those two extremes, two and a half centuries hence.

> For the botanists on TAXACOM: All these aspects will be 
> discussed in the ICBN context by the Special Committe on 
> Electronic Publication over the next year, and 
> recommendations on possible amendments to the ICBN will be 
> made to the next International Botanical Congress to be held 
> in Melbourne in July 2011.

One wonders whether there should be established and maintained an open
dialog between those looking to accommodate electronic publications under
ICBN, and those addressing the same issues under ICZN.

Brian Tindall (or anyone else with insights): Is IJSEM contemplating going
all-electronic?  Is this something you folks are contemplating in the
context of the Bacteriological Code?

Aloha,
Rich