[Taxacom] ICZN procedure question

[Stephen Thorpe]

the clarifications that I am seeking are (once again):

what are the advantages of e-only over the status quo?

who wants e-only and how will they benefit from it?




________________________________
From: Francisco Welter-Schultes <fwelter at gwdg.de>
To: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>; TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU; Stephen Thorpe 
<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Sent: Fri, 12 November, 2010 11:49:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] ICZN procedure question

Sorry Doug, you are right, I referred to the earlier issue, where 
there were six comments. 

The principal concern of most critical voices has less been the peer 
review problem and the quality of publications, but the long-term 
sustainability of electronic information. In medecine they don't 
need to read the original information in 250 years, that's the 
difference to us.

In BHL we are working hard in trying to develop systems to make 
electronic files more sustainable, but it is less a technical but 
rather a sociopolitical problem. Who is going to pay for 
maintaining electronic libraries? However, the first step is to 
develop such a library, that's what we are currently doing. Only 
then we can get realistic ideas of the costs for maintaining it, and 
then maybe the public gets convinced of how useful it would be to pay 
for all that continuously, for several such libraries in several 
countries. That would be great.

I also have a problem with most (or at least 50 % of the) 
Commissioners not communicating to an extent which in a democratic 
environment would be regarded as usual for persons whose job is to 
pass laws. The Commissioners cannot "hide" themselves behind 
political parties who would take care for the communication.
Since there is certainly no "consensus" in the community (this term 
was used in the initial proposal in 2008), as can be seen in the 
published comments, it is an exciting situation and there is always 
the question, what will happen if the Commission takes a decision 
disregarding this situation in the community. I would certainly opt 
for taking some measures afterwards, but I do not really like to 
think about that at the current moment.

Francisco

University of Goettingen, Germany
www.animalbase.org