Taxonomy and open access
As you may have heard, it was announced yesterday that a new species of mouse has been discovered in Cyprus. According to Mark Stoeckle at the Barcode blog (part of the Barcode of Life project), this was good news for taxonomic science because it “made headlines on 193 sites around the world including BBC, Reuters, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox News, International Herald Tribune, and Associated Press among others.”
At the same time, though, he also thinks that it was bad news for taxonomic science because
To learn more about what the researchers discovered, you have to purchase a journal subscription.
The press coverage of this article demonstrates discovery of new species is of wide public interest, and there are many persons who would want to read beyond the headlines. As it stands, readership is often limited to a small number of specialists, guaranteeing continuing obscurity for taxonomic science. Open access for new species descriptions could help increase visibility and willingness to fund taxonomic science.
Given the declining number of taxonomists in the world today, I think his point is well-made. These sorts of discoveries need all the exposure they can get to help spur interest in the field of taxonomy. And why do we need taxonomists? Because we can’t manage what we can’t measure, i.e. we can’t conserve biodiversity if we don’t know what organisms exist.
It may also be worthwhile pointing out, though, that some of the interest in this new discovery may stem from the fact that the mouse is quite cute. Most of the discoveries of new species that taxonomists are likely to be documenting will be of much less cute things like insects. These are likely to generate significantly less interest and demand for more information, including from the scientific literature.
Dr. Stoeckle’s post also brings to mind earlier entries here on Blogging Biodiversity about the links between various forms of intellectual property and biodiversity, and particularly about how copyrighted articles could constitute a form of biopiracy. See especially 24 April as well as posts from 26 April and 31 May.
(Thanks to Peter Suber for pointing me to Dr. Stoeckle’s post.)
Posted on October 13th, 2006 under Intellectual property • 
Print This Post
• 
Email This Post
• RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback