Electronic publication made available with amendment to the Code

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has voted in favour of a revised version of the amendment to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature that was proposed in 2008. The purpose of the amendment is to expand and refine the methods of publication allowed by the Code, particularly in relation to electronic publication. The amendment establishes an Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature (with ZooBank as its online version), allows electronic publication after 2011 under certain conditions, and disallows publication on optical discs after 2012. The requirements for electronic publications are that the work be registered in ZooBank before it is published, that the work itself state the date of publication and contain evidence that registration has occurred, and that the ZooBank registration state both the name of an electronic archive intended to preserve the work and the ISSN or ISBN associated with the work. Registration of new scientific names and nomenclatural acts is not required. The Commission has confirmed that ZooBank is ready to handle the requirements of the amendment.

The amendment, with a brief discussion, is available in open access and was simultaneously published at 07:00 GMT, 4 September 2012:
Zootaxa: http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2012/3450.html
Zookeys: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/3944/

Editorials and press coverage are available here (please note that those marked with an * do not report some details of the amendment correctly):

Zootaxa Editorial: http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2012/3450.html

Nature blogs: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/zoologists-endorse-electronic-publication-for-new-species.html

Phys Org: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-zoologists-longer-restricted-publish-species.html

PLoS One Blog*: http://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2012/09/05/new-animal-species-now-official-when-published-online/

Nature Editorial*: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/489178a.html

Discovery News*: http://news.discovery.com/animals/naming-new-species-goes-online-dnews-nugget.html

AlphaGalileo Foundation: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=123701&CultureCode=en

BioMed Central Blog: http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2012/09/19/electronic-revolution-in-zoological-taxonomy/