RIP IBS

Michael Mace michaelcmace@gmail.com
Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:36:06 PDT
Speaking as a former IBS member (and very minor contributor to Herbertia)
who migrated to PBS...

I think the whole situation is sad. When the first rumors about the IBS's
fate first circulated a few months ago, I contacted them to see if we could
do anything to help preserve the organization's photos and records. The good
news is that, as Nhu noted, they're keeping backups of everything,
continuing the website, and hoping to eventually get the organization
restarted in the future. Which is great; I hope they can pull it off.

The frustrating part, to me, is that the journal Herbertia has many decades
of marvelous bulb information that's almost completely unavailable to the
public. I bought some of the old issues when they were on sale, and they're
fascinating, with articles from great bulb-growers who are no longer with
us, like Sir Peter Smithers and Les Hannibal. 

Google has indexed all of this information but the IBS hasn't given
permission to reproduce the articles. So you can find old articles from the
journal but can't actually see them.  If the IBS completely disbands without
giving permission, the journals will fall into some sort of copyright limbo
and I don't know if they can be extracted from it in our lifetimes.

I wouldn't even mind if IBS put the articles on sale, but it drives me nuts
to know that they are there but essentially unavailable.

I think the lesson, if you run a plant group, is that you need to think now
about what happens to your legacy. Oh and by the way, in this age of
electronic publishing, those back issues of your journals are actually a
potential source of revenue.

Mike






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