[Taxacom] Centrally supported electronic archive

[Jim Croft]

These are exactly the issues we wrestled with Paul, and every solution
we can up with was an unsatisfactory compromise.

The problem lies with the concept of the protologue itself, which on
the surface seems arbitrary and subject to interpretation.   We had
the same problem with IPNI references.  In theory it is possible be
specify the protologue in its entirity:  Bloggsia 25: 15, 19-21, fig.
7, map 3.  The simplest approach is, using this case as an example, is
to prepare a PDF of the six complete pages that hold bits of the
protologue.  We considered trimming of all the surrounding
non-protologue stuff, but his involved too much manual assessment and
processing and the possibility of introduced error.

I think Rich's ontological approach of defining all the terms involved
in this arena before getting too far into it is a good one.  Until we
do this Rich and I will not be able to have a conversation - I see a
'treatment' as the inclusive article or monograph, Rich sees it as
collection of my fragments.  Once we get the terminology sorted out,
we can use it to define and deliver the various levels of atomization
and aggregation that Donat alludes to.  Where and how do we want to do
this?

My problem is I can not see a one size fits all solution.  In one
situation a protologue fragment will be required, in others, the
entire article or work (for the reasons Peter outlines).  BHL will
deliver the latter.  Not sure at all about the former.

jim

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Paul van Rijckevorsel
<dipteryx at freeler.nl> wrote:
> From: "Jim Croft" <jim.croft at gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 11:59 PM
>
>> When
>> someone calls [f]or the protologue, we do not want to send them the whole
>> article.  With limited resources we can not afford to scan an[d] store the
>> whole article when all we want is one page of it...
>
> ***
> Yes, an important issue: if all you want is the protologue, you do not want
> to have to deal with a whole article. However, a complicating factor is that
> from a nomenclatural perspective it is not necessarily immediately apparent
> what the protologue is; in fact it needs to be be 'circumscribed' from case
> to case. In the modern literature this will (almost always) be
> straightforward, but the introduction, etc to a book or article may also
> contain material that belongs to the protologue. Say, the Acknowlegdements
> may comment: "we are deeply grateful for the hospitality of Mr Przilowsky;
> in acknowledgement we have named our third species in honour of his eldest
> daughter". Theoretically, there may be a separation of hundreds of pages
> between one part of the protologue and another.
>
> ["Protologue ...: everything associated with a name at its valid
> publication, i.e. description or diagnosis, illustrations, references,
> synonymy, geographical data, citation of specimens, discussion, and
> comments."]
>
> It is not required that all the requirements of valid publication are met in
> a single publication; the final 'validating' publication only needs to refer
> to all the required parts, which need to have been effectively published
> earlier. For example the final publication may be a few lines only, but
> refer to a page-filling illustration elsewhere. So a protologue can be
> spread over more than one publication. All in all, 'circumscribing' a
> protologue is not a trivial matter. However, if the result goes into an
> accessible database, it need be done only once.
>
> Paul
>
>
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-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft

"Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality."
- Joseph Conrad, author (1857-1924)

"I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said,
but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
 - attributed to Robert McCloskey, US State Department spokesman