ANCHORING BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION: FROM SHERBORN TO THE 21ST CENTURY AND BEYOND

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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 equaled it and it is still in current, and critical, use. Figure 1. Charles Davies Sherborn aged 25 (A), 32 (B), 61 (C) and 72 (D). Until now, Sherborn’s contribution has been recognized and relied upon by professional taxonomists worldwide but he has escaped the celebration of his accomplishment that is his due. This changed on 28 October 2011, with a symposium held in his honour at the Natural History Museum (NHM), London, on the 150th year of his birth. The symposium was organized by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), in collaboration with the Society for the History of Natural History (SHNH). The full-day meeting included an international panel of experts on bibliography and biodiversity bioinformatics who linked a view of the past with an active debate on the future of these related fields. There were fifteen talks from distinguished speakers from around the world, and ten posters, including an exhibition of ‘Sherborniana’, or artifacts from Sherborn’s tenure at the NHM. This volume expands on that meeting, with contributions from most of the presenters and selected additional contributors. The global and temporal reach of this event was extended through high quality recordings of all the talks, posters and discussion, including slides and poster downloads, through this site: http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2011/10/anchoring-biodiversity-information-from-sherborn-to-the-21st-century-and-beyond/ and videos of all the talks through http://www.iczn.org/Sherborn. The papers in this volume fall into three general areas. In the first section, seven papers present different facets of Sherborn as a man, scientist and bibliographer, and describe the historical context for taxonomic indexing from the 19th century to today. In the second section, five papers (with a major appendix) discuss current tools and innovations for bringing legacy information into the modern age. The final section, with three papers, tackles the future of biological nomenclature, including innovative publishing models and the changing tools and sociology needed for communicating taxonomy. Because this volume is being produced as both a bound book and set of independent, Open Access papers free to download from the Web, there is a degree of overlap in some of the material covered. The papers need to be able to stand on their own, as well as to weave in to the whole overview of the accomplishments of this great man, his legacy and the roadmap for the future. In addition, because of the varied topics, the papers vary in style and length, some being more literary, some historical, some technical and some philosophical. Some are richly illustrated, others not at all. The only instructions to the authors were to attempt to reference each other’s papers to the greatest practical degree, simulating the kind of cross-topic communication one might have by being present at a symposium. The papers were all peer reviewed – most had critical input from three independent specialists in the field. I hope this diversity of approaches, rigorous oversight and the cross-pollination make the volume stimulating to read as a whole