[Taxacom] PHYTOTAXA, a new international journal for plant taxonomy

[Vladimir Gusarov]

Dear Rod,

I would like to comment on the second part of your message. I think, as 
far as the majority of practicing taxonomists are concerned, your points 
2 and 3 certainly apply. One could think of an additional failure: 
training/educating people in use of the biodiversity informatics tools. 
There are, of course, workshops focusing on particular topics, e.g. 
georeferencing, but I am not aware of any comprehensive Biodiversity 
Informatics book covering the entire toolkit available, and the 
theoretical considerations behind it (something like How To manual). I 
hope I have not missed it if it exists.

I think such book would be a guaranteed bestseller in taxonomic 
community, and could help tremendously in reducing the individual effort 
required to combine taxonomy with modern informatics. While being a 
taxonomist, I do not consider myself a dinosaur, I know very well what 
GBIF is and does, but still I often feel that biodiversity 
informaticians speak a language unknown to me. In other words, there is 
a big gap to be bridged.

May be I am being old fashioned in longing for a book, but we still use 
books to educate ourselves and our students.

Cheers,

Vladimir

On 23.10.2009 18:18, Roderic Page wrote:
> My first reaction on seeing this is that it represents a missed  
> opportunity. 
> 
> It is disheartening that pumping PDFs out is seen as the best that we  
> can do. Is this really the case? If it is then biodiversity  
> informatics has failed, in which case is the failure one of:
> 
> 1. producing tools publishers find useful
> 
> 2. making people aware of the availability of those tools
> 
> 3. convincing people of the utility of the kinds of things I've listed  
> above
> 
> or some combination of all three?
> 
> In any event, I think this represents a spectacular example of a  
> missed opportunity, and perhaps a sign that for all the glitz of e- 
> Biosphere 09, we've made virtually no progress in the eight years  
> since Zootaxa was launched.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Rod

> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Roderic Page
> Professor of Taxonomy
> DEEB, FBLS
> Graham Kerr Building
> University of Glasgow
> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
> 
> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Vladimir Gusarov, Ph.D.
Curator of Entomology
University of Oslo
Natural History Museum
Department of Zoology                        \\ /
P.O. Box 1172 Blindern                   ooooDD0-0C
NO-0318 Oslo                                 // \
Norway
Tel +47 22851703
Fax +47 22851837
email: vladimir.gusarov at nhm.uio.no

Visiting address:
Sars Gate 1
NO-0562 Oslo

Insect collection: 
http://www.nhm.uio.no/forskning-samlinger/forskning/forskningsgrupper/nsi/english/collection/
National Center for Insect Biodiversity: 
http://www.nhm.uio.no/forskning-samlinger/forskning/forskningsgrupper/nsi/english/
Nasjonalt Senter for Insektbiodiversitet: http://www.insektsenteret.no
Personal web page: 
http://www.nhm.uio.no/forskning-samlinger/forskning/forskningsgrupper/nsi/english/collection/gusarov/
Internet resources for Staphylinidae: 
http://www.nhm.uio.no/forskning-samlinger/forskning/forskningsgrupper/nsi/english/collection/gusarov/resources/

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