[Taxacom] electronic publication in zoology: who are the biggest idiots?

[Stephen Thorpe]

Rod, 
What I meant by that (..."plain English" and all that...) was that it is better to steer well clear of e-only journals until such time (if ever) that the ICZN tightens up and clarifies the rules about that. At present, those rules are difficult to understand and often misinterpreted. Just as a philosophical point, being "out of step with the modern world" is not necessarily a bad thing, if the modern world embraces superficiality and promotes quick fixes for the sake of $$$ ...
Cheers,
Stephen

From: Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Cc: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> 
Sent: Tuesday, 24 July 2012 10:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] electronic publication in zoology: who are the biggest idiots?


On 24 Jul 2012, at 10:32, Stephen Thorpe wrote:

your words are unclear ... at any rate the article in question is not at present certainly published (since it is effectively an "early view" manuscript which may undergo editing changes, which version has been deposited in the libraries, and when?) It is far better to keep things simple and stay clear, for the time being, of e-only journals for zoological taxonomy ... I *strongly* recommend that!
> 
>Stephen
>

Good luck with that. Nothing makes taxonomic look more out of step with the modern world than it's attitude to digital publication.

Rod



>From: Gerwin Kasperek <sls2411 at ub.uni-frankfurt.de>
>To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
>Sent: Tuesday, 24 July 2012 9:07 PM
>Subject: Re: [Taxacom] electronic publication in zoology: who are the biggest idiots?
>
>Quoting Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>:
>
> 
>>
>Clearly, although they don't specify, the authors think that they  
>>
>have complied with Art. 8.6, but they have not, because because  
>>
>paper copies are not the form in which the article was published, it  
>>
>was published electronically (in the form of PDFs). It is hard to  
>>
>know how one can deposit PDFs into libraries, (...)
>>
>It is not! Many libraries have recognized the challenges involved in  
>collecting, archiving and making available electronic documents, and  
>they have build electronic repositories which solve many of the  
>pertinent issues, and which provide a very good perspective regarding  
>long-term availability. Beside institutional repositories, there are  
>several subject-specific repositories for biological publications:  
>PubMed Central is widely known; another one is vifabioDOC, established  
>by the University Library Frankfurt (which has the largest collections  
>of biology literature in Germany). I suppose that at least some of the  
>five libraries mentioned by the authors are running repositories as  
>well.
>
>   
>
>So, can we "shoehorn" this case into compliance with Art. 8.1.2?  
>>
>Probably not! The PDFs satisfy 8.1.2 (but fail 8.6), but the printed  
>>
>copies do not satisfy 8.1.2. Giving them to five libraries is surely  
>>
>like giving them to five friends. It does not make them "obtainable"  
>>
>by general public. (...)
>>
>Here are some essential facts about academic libraries. In many many  
>countries, documents not available in one library can be ordered via  
>inter-library loan from other libraries, or can be ordered via  
>document delivery services (such as http://www.subito-doc.de/,  
>provided by numerous central European libraires). In my eyes, it is  
>impossible to do taxonomy without using services like these; one  
>reason is, a great deal of the taxonomic literature will only be  
>available in print for many years to come. Everything else is just  
>wishful thinking.
>
>In the case of the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, all  
>articles will be archived in electronic format at PubMed Central.
>
>Regards
>Gerwin
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>Dr Gerwin Kasperek
>Virtual Library of Biology
>http://www.vifabio.de/?lang=en
>-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
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---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
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