[Taxacom] Zootaxonomy publishing

[Stephen Thorpe]

the Zootaxa rejection rate in 2001-2003 may be artificially high, and it would be more informative to know the 2009 rate. This is because it was initially envisaged (first year = 2001) as an outlet for monographs, not lots of small papers, and so there may have been an initial bias against small papers. However, small papers are what the taxonomic community wanted in the end, so the focus shifted, and the rest is history...

>when Zootaxa and other taxonomic journals don't have to print their articles and ship paper around the world, their costs will go down

there is some opposition to this happening, so best say "if and when"!

As for quality control, there is a broad range in the standard of published papers for Zootaxa (and ZooKeys) - the lower end isn't terrible (I can't see Makhan ever publishing there), but is isn't great either ...


________________________________________
From: Bob Mesibov [mesibov at southcom.com.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 9 February 2010 5:13 p.m.
To: Stephen Thorpe
Cc: TAXACOM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Zootaxonomy publishing

Hi, Stephen.

I suppose I should have declared an interest: I'm a ZooKeys [not Zootaxa] editor and I'm very keen on the added goodies that ZooKeys offers. And there's PhytoKeys, too. But my post was a spin-off of the e-only thread, because when Zootaxa and other taxonomic journals don't have to print their articles and ship paper around the world, their costs will go down. They may be able to publish more. If it's a lot more, then the one-or-a-few-journals model may become a practical way to broaden the quality control that already exists in zootaxonomy publishing. (Note that Zootaxa rejection rate...)
--
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Website: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html