Dear colleagues,
thanks for the most recent postings by Pedro Martinez Arbizu, Scott
Federhen and Frank-Thorsten Krell. I want to join the list of
enthusiastic followers of the idea of a general register of names
(and nomenclatural acts) and thank all of those who did the work up
to now and will continue to do so.
Frank's mention of a paper archive (Also, the ICZN will maintain a
paper archive of all original descriptions, housed in The Natural
History Museum London, because (durable) paper is the only archival
medium that has proven to survive centuries and changing
technologies)) is, in my opinion, extremely important. The recent
discussion thread on the three possible scenarios for ZooBank gave me
the impression that the aspect of durability of an archive did not
find the proper consideration.
Maybe it helps the taxonomists community to pay more attention to the
ink-on-paper method of storing information when you read that the
UKAEA (UK Atomic Energy Authority) decided to ditch all the high tech
solutions and go for something that has a genuinely proven track
record: Papyrus in order to make sure information about how to handle
nuclear waste is left for future generations.
See: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/09/papyrus_nuclear_waste/
or
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050809-18251000-bc-britain-nukerecords.xml
Another point: copyright. Theoretically, I agree with
Frank-Thorsten's concerns. In practice, I made the experience that
publishers allow quite generously to make use of their material,
especially if it has been published a long time ago. Thus, the main
bulk of work will be, after all I see, to trace the copyright holder
and contact them. This is not an easy task since so many publishing
houses disappeared from the scene, either through extinction or through fusion.
Best regards
Michael
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* Prof.Dr. Michael Schmitt (Zoologischer Anzeiger, Editor-in- *
* Chief; Bonner zoologische Beitraege, Editor-in-Chief) *
* Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig *
* Adenauerallee 160, D-53113 Bonn, Germany *
* Phone/Fax: +49 228-9122 286, e-mail: m.schmitt at uni-bonn.de *
* http://www.museumkoenig.uni-bonn.de/mit/dnavmit.htm *
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