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Whitey Hagadorn, Robert Guralnick, Tom De Vrie, Mark Sutton, and others
before them have posted thoughtful and constructive comments on how to
proceed with electronic publishing. There are two things we all seem to
agree on: (1) electronic publishing has enormous potential and is here to
stay, and (2) the peer review system should be retained. Just a couple of
comments on some of the other matters where there seem to be diverging
opinions.
Like Roger Kaesler, I can't see that ICZN rules or other such legalistic
matters would be a problem. The new draft of the Code (can be FTP-ed from
muse.bio.cornell.edu under pub/standards/iczn-4) tries to deal with the
issues, and in the meantime we can always print out a couple of hundred
copies of the diagnoses of new taxa on the nearest laser printer.
Aspects of job applications etc. are currently a little more serious,
because it may decide a person's future carrier here and now. I think what
we need is a few high-powered and peer-reviewed electronic publications and
a few high-powered authors publishing in it, and appointment committees
will turn around 180 degrees in no time.
Of course, to have high-powered electronic journals you must have some
resources to create and maintain them, which (surprise!) brings me to my
current pet topic, money. (Ooops, did I just write that?)
Technical advancements in electronic communication is certainly making
previously tiresome and exacting tasks easy, but at the same time we
discover even more tasks that we want to do. This process is accelerating,
and those involved in scientific communication (read publishing) will have
more and more to do, not less. Making a homepage is easy. Setting up and
maintaining a permanent website that can serve as the forum for effective
and reliable distribution of peer-reviewed articles, databases, models,
visuzalizations, and whatever will be demanded tomorrow or even tonight, is
somewhat less easy, and those doing it must be prepared for a lengthy
commitment and a never-ending learning process.
All this would be great - a wonderful opportunity for people with
scientific and communicative skills to find their niches and do a great
service to science. Except - scientists (well, some, at least) believe that
these services should be "free". The people running the show are expected
to work "on a volunteer basis", without a salary and without a budget.
Well, they might - for a while. Enthusiastic volunteers can do a wonderful
job running a web journal, but what happens when they decide to do
something they can get paid for instead?
To me, "free information" doesn't mean that it comes without cost (i.e.
that somebody else pays). It means that I can get at it easily, nobody will
stop me, and any fee that comes with it is reasonable, i.e. it's what's
necessary to keep the system running. If I can get the information I need
on the net without hassle, that's all there is to it. If a bill comes at
the end of the year or a fee is subtracted from my electronic account, it's
just a cost comparable to that of keeping my computer running (dang, there
goes that harddisk again!).
If we can find the gold at the other end of the rainbow (i.e. supporting
institutions, research councils, etc.), that's also fine, but don't expect
to build up and maintain a competent organization without using money for
resources and even for (shudder!) salaries.
Stefan Bengtson
Editor (unsalaried as such, but with a budget to replace flaming harddisks)
Stefan Bengtson _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/
Department of Palaeozoology _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/_/
Swedish Museum of Natural History _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
Box 50007 _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/
S-104 05 Stockholm _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/
Sweden _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
tel. +46-8 666 42 20
+46-18 54 99 06 (home)
fax +46-8 666 41 84
e-mail Stefan.Bengtson@nrm.se
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