Dear Annelid enthusiasts,
Geoff Read has noted that the Nature Conservancy has posted:
>America's Least Wanted:
> Alien Species Invasions of U.S. Ecosystems
--snip--snip--
>http://www.tnc.org/science/library/pubs/dd/title.html
and noted that
>Oh yes, there is also a paper version and there is no taxonomy. So it
>is not directly relevant to our discussion. But it is interesting to
>see a major USA environmental organisation doing this simultaneous
>parallel publication. And it's free. As a result the information has
>already reached people who would never encounter the paper
>publication. Believe it, one day not too far off only the electronic
>version will be produced.
I do believe it and in fact there are quite a number of other examples
including a large monograph on the introduced species of San Francisco
Bay contributed by Jim Carlton, the URL of which is not available to me
here in this office, but I will post it later.
I agree completely with Geoff, that the WWW and internet in general
will eventually be a fully compatable source of publication with paper.
However, in the context of the current Rules of Nomenclature, the
issues of permanance are crucial. A close friend (who works on
Crustacea) has informed of a similar discussion in another venue the
results of which concluded that the type of document archiving
necessary to achieve permanance that will satisfy the ICZN is at least
3 years away.
I submit that we could accelerate that process if funding agencies
could be inspired to fund projects that would develop the archival
resources and produce electronic journals. I believe we have the
technology, but not the focus.
Yours also prophetically,
Jim Blake
(jablake at ix.netcom.com)
