Pseudo-Taxonomy on the WWW

[Marine Biology Laboratory]

On Mon, 21 Oct 1996, Robin Wilson wrote:

> 
> Dear Annelidans
> 
> I have to agree with Jim Blake and Paul Schroeder.  It is the lack of 
> a permanent archive that renders electronic works dubious entrants to the 
> taxonomic literature. 

Greetings:
So have some designated library(s) print out copies for their holdings.

> I know that nothing can be truly permanent, and 
> that there are lots of rare and difficult to view paper publications, but 
> a move towards www publication as the _only_ medium would swing the 
> balance seriously towards ephemera. 

It should never be the only media, just as paper can no longer be the 
only media for recording, publishing, and storing science data and 
results.  Insisting on paper-only has the same restrictive impact as the 
ancient insistence that all scholarly works appear only in Latin.  Or how 
about the French regulation recently issued on French language publications? 


> However, there is nothing (apart 
> from time and money!) stopping our trusty moderator from archiving www 
> works annually on a CD-ROM which would have an ISSN number, placing these 
> also in a www archive, and having the contents indexed on Current 
> Contents etc.  Such submissions intended for archiving/publication would 
> have to be clearly designated as such by their authors, and could and 
> should be "refereed" by list subscribers. 

Sounds like a good idean

Thanks for your comments.

Bye for now,

Tom Parker
mblcsdla at netcom.com