A new era in zoological nomenclature and taxonomy: ICZN accepts e-publication and launches ZooBank

Zhi-Qiang Zhang

doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3450.1.2

Abstract

In this issue of Zootaxa, we publish the amendment of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, 4th edition (ICZN 1999) by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 2012: 1–7) to expand and refine methods of publication. This landmark publication not only defines the conditions for the validity of e-publications in zoological nomenclature and taxonomy, but also announces the formal transition of ZooBank (http://zoobank.org/) from being the prototype ICZN registry (started on 1 Jan. 2008; see Pyle et al. 2008) to the official ICZN registry. It should be noted that the original proposals for the amendment were also first published in Zootaxa (ICZN 2008), when we made a special effort to publish the paper for open access under the “Creative Commons Attribution License”[1] (Zhang 2008). We are doing the same here for this amendment (ICZN 2012) to ensure it reaches the widest possible readership.[1]See details http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Highlights

1) the work must be registered in ZooBank before it is published, 2) the work itself states the date of publication with evidence that registration has occurred, and 3) the ZooBank registration states both the name of an electronic archive intended to preserve the work and the ISSN or ISBN associated with the work
The amendment to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 2012: 1–7) allows publication in “widely accessible electronic copies with fixed content and layout” of new names and nomenclatural acts in zoology after 2011 under the following conditions2: 1) the work must be registered in ZooBank before it is published, 2) the work itself states the date of publication with evidence that registration has occurred, and 3) the ZooBank registration states both the name of an electronic archive intended to preserve the work and the ISSN
While the amendment conforms to the basic principles of registration and archiving for electronic publication as originally proposed in ICZN (2008), it does not require the registration of new scientific names and nomenclatural acts as proposed in ICZN (2008) and requires only the intent to archive by stating the intended archive in ZooBank; this is less ideal but it is more practical as users will find it easier to comply

Summary

Introduction

1) the work must be registered in ZooBank before it is published, 2) the work itself states the date of publication with evidence that registration has occurred, and 3) the ZooBank registration states both the name of an electronic archive intended to preserve the work and the ISSN or ISBN associated with the work. A new era in zoological nomenclature and taxonomy: ICZN accepts e-publication and launches ZooBank

Results

Conclusion