[Taxacom] Darwinius and electronic publication yet again

Fri May 22 05:43:49 CDT 2009

I think we are all missing some important points here but no time to
articulate them now. The e-biosphere and the follow on 'bionomenclature'
symposium is the appropriate formum to do this.

In haste,

Paul 

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of bti at dsmz.de
Sent: 22 May 2009 11:06
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Darwinius and electronic publication yet again

Hi Rich,
You did ask..

Rule 25a now reads:
?Effective publication is effected under this Code by making generally
available, by sale or distribution, to the scientific community, printed
and/or electronic material for the purpose of providing an unalterable,
permanent record.?
?Note. Electronic publication should follow the tradition of publication
of printed matter acceptable to this Code.?
(Tradition of publication of printed matter means peer reiewed work!).

add

?(6) Making available electronic material in advance of publication
(e.g. papers in press, or otherwise making unpublished manuscripts
available in electronic format).?

Rule 25b now reads:

?The date of publication of a scientific work is the date of publication
of the printed or electronic matter. The date given to the work
containing the name or epithet must be regarded as correct in the
absence of proof to the contrary.?

and as I have said in a paper in press:

The International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology
(IJSEM), published by the Society for General Microbiology, also
provides an open access service to the original literature published in
the pages of the journal (ijs.sgmjournals.org). This policy makes all
publications available free of charge two years after the date of
publication. The journal also participates in the WHO HINARI and UN
(FAO) AGORA (access to scienti?c literature) programmes, allowing access
without charge, to eligible institutions in World Bank List 1 countries,
immediately on posting on the internet. There are plans to make back
issue of the International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology and the
International Bulletin of Bacteriological Nomenclature and Taxonomy
(predecessors of the IJSEM) available online. This would give access to
all institutions now interested in these publications that have never
subscribed to the original printed versions.
(in fact the back issues of the journal are now online).

The next issue would be to require all work published out side of the
IJSEM and cited during the course of valid publication to be available
at least 2 years after publication without charge in electronic form.  
Just one side issue - how foots the bill for the current "open access"  
journals? It might not be the end user, but the original authors.

Brian
PS been to the library recently and seen the drop in the number of
journals on the shelves, because you can get instant access at any point
behind the campus IP address to the current research journals?  
This is also one reason why BHL is scanning the inportant literature,
because it makes works available world wide in an instant. I think Donat
also indicated the rapid increase in Internet connections.

Quoting Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>:

>> 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
>
>
>
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