Anchoring biodiversity information : from Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond

Names are our primary framework for organizing information on the living world. But how do we tie scientific names to a foundation so they provide stability and repeatability to otherwise fluid conceptual topics such as taxonomies? Biodiversity informatics aims to solve this issue, and its founding father was Charles Davies Sherborn. His magnum opus z provided the bibliographic foundation for current zoological nomenclature. 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. Anchoring Biodiversity Information celebrates Sherborn, his contributions, context and the future for the discipline of biodiversity informatics. The papers in this volume fall into three general areas. Papers in the first section present facets of Sherborn as a man, scientist and bibliographer, and describe the historical context for taxonomic indexing from the 19th century to today. Papers in the second section discuss current tools and innovations for bringing legacy biodiversity information into the modern age. The final section tackles the future of biological nomenclature, including digital access, innovative publishing models and the changing tools and sociology needed for communicating taxonomy.