Zoology and digital preservation
There was an interesting post to the Arcan-L list today about a somewhat surprising side-effect of digital publishing. The zoological science community has certain set protocol for recognizing the preferred terms for animal names. This has traditionally meant looking to published print materials. As more and more journals move to electronic-only versions, this policy needs to be adapted. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature is now in the process of drafting changes, and is seeking input not only from scientists but from archivists. As noted on their website, “Electronic-only publications should be allowed, if mechanisms can be found that give reasonable assurance of the long-term accessibility of the information they contain.”
The question is: what constitutes reasonable assurance? It’s relative, of course. In our class on digital preservation, Luciana Duranti always pointed us to patents: national patent offices have very, very good recordkeeping systems, because a lot of money and legal battles depend on those records. I got into a bit of an argument with a software fella at Infocamp about why I like my government to take new technology slowly. It’s odd to find myself advocating such caution in innovation, but sometimes stability really is more important.
Anyway, I’m glad that the ICZN is asking for input from archivists on this issue, and I hope they get some valuable commentary. You can see the full information here.
