Nicolson and colleagues analysed the detectability of the protologues of new names, digitized types of new names, and the geographic origin of newly named taxa and the places where their type specimens are deposited. The results show that 41% of the nomenclatural acts published between 2012 and 2021 are in literature that remains undiscoverable by electronic means (figure 2 (b)) and only 23% are published in open access literature. They also report a huge discrepancy in the percentages of names published “open access” among developed countries in the North and species-rich, but less developed tropical countries.
This is an excellent study. I learned so much about ways in which one can analyse the relevant data (using “unpywall” etc.). My comments below are all minor, but I would like to make the authors aware of a proposal that would further help the global access to botanical resources:
Renner, S. S. 2021. Recommendation for adding photographs of type specimens to the protologues of new names of taxa at the rank of species or below. Taxon 70(2): 452–453. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12468
Minor corrections:
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