[Zoobank-list] Zoological Record and ZooBank

[nigel.robinson at thomson.com]

Given the recent debates, I thought I should clarify the position of
Zoological Record (ZR) and its derived names service - the Index to
Organism Names (ION) in the ZooBank project. In support of ZooBank, I
will be presenting this at the Entomological Society of America
conference in November, but for those who will not be attending, this
will give you the overview.

As I am sure you are all aware, ZR has indexed the taxonomic literature
since 1864, and has for several years provided an open access names
service containing the animal names gathered from the literature of 1978
onwards. As well as the annual printed ZR, there are web and CD based
versions which are updated monthly.

 ZR has a long association with ICZN, the Zoological Society of London,
Species 2000 and GBIF, and provides the names data for Nomenclator
Zoologicus (Neave) which is now available online as an open access
resource.  In discussions with ICZN, it became apparent that there is
considerable synergy between ZR and ICZN in the area of names
registration and online access to names data. In fact, the soon to be
revised ION service already incorporates many of the features which ICZN
would like to see in ZooBank, such as name/article submission, new name
alerts, original description references, name authority, classification,
links to web based resources etc. This new revised version of ION is in
the final stages of development and will be released in the next few
weeks. It will be extended to include zoological names from 1864 forward
as we extract then from the hard copies of ZR over the next year, and
will eventually also include names from botany and microbiology derived
from ZR's sister publications, BIOSIS Previews and Biological Abstracts.
It will remain as a freely available names service and will be the most
complete zoological names repository reflecting almost 150 years of
research.

Through increased use of advanced technology, articles are now generally
processed for ZR within 2-11 days of receipt, recording all new names
and nomenclatural acts, and sophisticated and reliable checks are in
place to ensure data quality. We also believe ZR is more complete than
it was several years ago, although we will never be 100% complete until
registration is achieved. The data capture used in ZR now functions on a
forms basis which either already captures, or can be made to deduce,
availability criteria for new names as defined by ICZN. We are working
with ICZN to look at how we can enhance this to evaluate the required
criteria to make Code compliance testing an automated part of the ZR
data capture process. That way, all names indexed in ZR would be
automatically marked as available/unavailable and feed ZooBank. This
would provide (free of charge) a large part of the work involved in the
registration process for published names.

Thus, a partnership between ICZN and ZR will enable an open access
register, controlled and run by ICZN to be in place much more quickly if
data already gathered for ZR and made freely available through the ION
service can be fed to ZooBank.   

As names are added to ION from the literature back to 1864, it may be
possible to use the associated ZR indexing created at the time to help
determine availability. We will also be able to link to the full text
original articles as they are digitized in the various collections
around the world and will be able to make these searchable through the
ION and the electronic ZR service.

As soon as the new version of ION is released I will circulate the URL.
In the meantime, if anyone has any questions, please let me know!


Nigel 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
Nigel J Robinson (Director, Operations & Development) 
Thomson Zoological Ltd 
York Science Park (Innovation Centre) 
Heslington 
York  YO10 5DG 
United Kingdom 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

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