Electronic publication

[Fabio Moretzsohn]

I could not post a message on this thread  earlier, and now the discussion
seems to have drifted towards the life span of different media (including
paper), which has been addressed at lenght several times before on this
list. Doug Yanega posted a message (probably a year ago?) pointing out that
as technology evolves, if any information is important, it will be copied to
other media, like music from 8-track was - the 8-track is long gone, but the
music is still around.

I actually wanted to say something about Zootaxa, mentioned in Mesibov's
post that started this thread. Like Gusarov, before I submitted a manuscript
to Zootaxa, I did some research. The current president of ICZN has published
some articles in Zootaxa, including the description of new taxa. I contacted
him, and he assured me that because the journal publishes both a paper and
an online version (in PDF) ON THE SAME DAY, and that they are basically
identical *, the publication meets ICZN publication requirements and, thus,
is a valid publication. I also inquired several authors who published in
that journal, and all said they were very pleased with their experience.

I decided to submit a manuscript, and now I can also say I am also very
pleased with my experience with Zootaxa. My manuscript was peer-reviewed,
accepted, and published in less than one month! Among the attractive
features of the journal are the following: 1) peer-reviewed; 2) fast
publication once the ms is acepted for publication (usually less than one
month); 3) free color in the online version (see below); 4) no required page
charges (but authors wanting their complete articles to be available for
free are asked a US$20 per page fee, which is less than most journals charge
for paper publication; 5) no page limit; 6) online version for wide
accessibility on the Internet; 7) free e-reprint to the author for personal
use (to exchange with colleagues); and 8) indexed by BIOSIS' Zoological
Record.

* The question on whether illustration color in the online version is
identical or different from the black and white figures in the paper version
seems to be a matter of interpretation. Zootaxa prints color figures of the
online version in black and white on paper, BUT if the author pays for color
publication (color publication costs more in any journal), the paper version
can also be published in color, and thus, can be identical to the PDF
(online) version. And for the authors who cannot afford (or prefer not) to
pay for color publication, the PDF with color figures can be printed in
black and white (e.g. in a laser printer), thus rendering an identical copy
to the original paper version. If the ICZN or any committee decides that the
PDF file with color illustrations is different from the paper version with
black and white figures, then Zootaxa should write a disclaimer about that
on the published articles.

I strongly recommend Zootaxa as a fast, valid and worthy outlet for all
zoological taxonomists. Zootaxa is certainly a step in the right direction
to help the taxonomic process move along faster.

My two cents.

Fabio

Fabio Moretzsohn
PhD Candidate
Department of Zoology
University of Hawaii
fmoretz at hawaii.edu
fmoretzsohn at hotmail.com (preferred)