News

Obituary: Frank A. Bisby (1926-2011)

Edward Baker — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

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An obituary was published in the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature.

Obituary: William D. L. Ride (1926-2011)

Edward Baker — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

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An obituary was published in the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature.

Anchoring Biodiversity Information: From Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond

Edward Baker — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:32:52 +0000

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Talks and posters (podcast)

Friday October 28^th 2011, Flett Theatre, The Natural History Museum, London, UK

Overview: Charles Davies Sherborn provided the bibliographic foundation for current zoological nomenclature with his magnum opus Index Animalium. In the 43 years he spent working on this extraordinary resource, he anchored our understanding of animal diversity through the published scientific record. No work has equalled it since and it is still in current, and critical, use.

Until now, Sherborn’s contribution has been recognised by professional taxonomists worldwide but he has escaped the celebration of his accomplishment that is his due. We held a symposium in his honour in the 150^th year of his birth here at the NHM, with an international panel of experts on bibliography and biodiversity bioinformatics, linking a view of the past with an active debate on the future of the related fields.

Sponsors

ICZN – International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
SHNH - Society for the History of Natural History
Linnean Society
BHL-Europe – Biodiversity Heritage Library-Europe
Pensoft Publishers (ZooKeys)
NHM - Natural History Museum, Science Directorate
ViBRANT – Virtual Biodiversity

Supportive organisations

Geological Association, ZSL – Zoological Society of London, NMNH Smithsonian Institution Libraries, NHM Libraries, NHM Centre for Arts and Humanities (CAH), The Ray Society, Aves Press (Zoological Bibliography), Zoological Record, The Natural History Book Store, IAPT (Int’l Assoc Plant Taxonomy)

A recent article in the Telegraph and the NHM house journal evolve begins the celebration of Sherborn in this anniversary year: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8646534/Charles-Davies-Sherborn-the-Natural-History-Museums-magpie-with-a-card-index-mind.html

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Sherborn Meeting Poster	847.65 KB
Sherborn Programme and Abstracts	211.63 KB

Data standards, sense and stability: Scratchpads, the ICZN and ZooBank

Edward Baker — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

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New publication about the ICZN website and ZooBank:

The International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature has used the
Scratchpads platform (currently being developed and maintained by
ViBRANT) as the foundation for its redesigned website and as a platform
for engaging with its users. The existing Scratchpad tools, with
extensions to provide additional functions, have allowed for a major
transformation in presentation of linked nomenclatural tools. Continued
development of the new website will act as a springboard for the ICZN to
participate more fully in the wider community of biodiversity
informatics.

Link to article

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature Fundraising Lecture

Edward Baker — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:47:05 +0000

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Thursday 16 December at 7.00 pm
Ondaatje Theatre, Royal Geographical Society, London

What’s in a name? Attenborough & Fortey on animals
Sir David Attenborough and Prof. Richard Fortey

With his delight and enthusiasm for biodiversity, Sir David shares some of his favourite encounters with animals. Prof. Fortey explains why scientific names are more than just labels, with stories of trilobites and field adventures.

Online Ticketing for What’s in a name? Attenborough & Fortey on animals powered by Eventbrite

List of open cases updated

Edward Baker — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

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The list of open cases has been updated.

Discussion on electronic publication

Scratchpad Team — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:07:51 +0000

A public meeting to discuss the proposed amendment on electronic (e-) publication was held following the Sherborn symposium on Saturday 29 October, 2011 in the Natural History Museum, London. Approximately 30 taxonomists, librarians and publishers attended, including eight current Commissioners (Alonso-Zarazaga, Bogutskaya, Fautin, Krell, Pape, Rosenberg, van Tol, Winston) and one ex-Commissioner and member of the 4th Code Editorial Committee (Thompson). Authors of the most strongly argued published Comments on e-publication, both pro and con, were present. The meeting was chaired by Ellinor Michel, ICZN Executive Secretary and Gary Rosenberg, Chair of the 5th Code Editorial Committee. The meeting began with a presentation from Sandra Knapp, Chair of the Botanical Nomenclature Committee and ITZN Member (Trustee), on how e-publication was debated and voted through in the Botanical Congress in Melbourne in July of this year. Details of how e-publication should or should not be implemented in zoology were then discussed vigorously by all attending until a break after three hours. The discussion was wide-ranging and passionate. On reconvening, the group maintained its breadth of representation though with numbers slightly reduced to 20-15 people. After a short period at the start of the meeting that might be described informally as a bun fight, discussion was respectful and very constructive. A focused set of questions for the Commission resulted.

Straw Votes were taken on summary statements from the discussion, with the following results:

Should registration in an official register and e-publication be mandatorily coupled (with the proviso that there is a working registration mechanism, such as ZooBank)?
YES: 13

NO: 8

ABSTAIN: 3

Is this the time to recognise e-publication for nomenclatural acts? (Or stated in other words, whatever the mechanism, we are in favour of working towards a way to allow e-publication)

YES: 23

NO: 1

ABSTAIN: 1

Should we aim for Jan 2012 start date for allowing e-publication regardless of the status of registration (with a retroactive implementation if the e-publication amendment passes due to the required voting period)?

YES: 20

NO: 1

ABSTAIN: 0

The group made several suggestions of items for the Commission to consider in revising the amendment for e-publication in preparation for a vote:

1. Is it consistent with the principles of the amendment to have that the proposed changes in Article 8 & 9 be voted on separately from those in Article 10? The Commission was requested to address this as a purely procedural question. The content of Articles 8 and 9 (on publishing and archiving) was felt to be far less problematic than that of 10 (on registration), especially as ZooBank remains an unproven, though promising, infrastructure of scale.

2. Is it consistent with the principles of the amendment to have staggered start dates, with a later start date for registration than for e-publication? The group agreed that it should be left open for the Commission to decide when registration is ready, and this should be independent of e-publication for the time being.

3. Mechanisms for how and when to move registration forward need to be addressed as a matter of priority.

4. Should having an ISBN or ISSN be added as a requirement for the availability of an electronic work (as done in Botany)?

5. The proposals drafted for the e-publication discussion by the botanists were considered to be well-thought out in general (Chapman, Arthur D., Nicholas J. Turland & Mark F. Watson. 2010. Report of the Special Committee on Electronic Publication. Taxon 59(6):1853–1862) and should be considered in detail by the ICZN Commissioners.

6. Recommendation 8C was felt to be problematic in two ways: 1) it combines two logically separate recommendations; and 2) the first of these ‘Ideally names and nomenclatural acts published in electronic works should also be published simultaneously on paper.’ conveys that electronic publication is "second class", and also will result in the creation of two competing simultaneous versions, from which it will be difficult to choose a single version of record. One solution would be just to delete the first half so that it reads: Recommendation 8C. Electronic works. Electronic works should be structured to allow automated indexing and data extraction.

DEST Training Courses

Edward Baker — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST), originally funded by the EC in the framework of the EDIT project, has launched the Modern Taxonomy course programme 2011-2012 to provide future professionals with fundamental expert knowledge on basic taxonomy.

Upcoming courses on nomenclature are:

Biological Nomenclature (Paris, 17-21 October 2011)
Zoological Nomenclature (Madrid, 27-29 January 2012)
Botanical Nomenclature (Kew, 30 January - 3 February 2012)

More info at:
http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/modern-taxonomy-course-programme-...

Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature & BioStor

Edward Baker — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:36:19 +0000

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Recently the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) scanned more volumes from the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, and Rod Page has extracted articles from these scans and added them to BioStor. You can get a complete list of articles identified so far at http://biostor.org/issn/0007-5167

There are still gaps, and the article metadata (titles, authorship, etc.) is still incomplete, but if you are looking for older ICZN Cases and Opinions, you'll find many, if not most, of them in this collection.

Notice on Comments for Case 3463 - Proposed conservation of usage of Testudo gigantea Schweigger, 1812 (Currently Geochelone (Aldabrachelys) gigantea; Reptilia, Testudines)

Edward Baker — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:30:49 +0000

No further comments on Case 3463 will be accepted for publication after 1 May 2011 unless they contain substantial new evidence that is likely to affect the vote.