Biomed Central首先接近International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature(ICZN), the body providing the rules by which animal species are named, in September 2005. We wanted to ensure that our journals best served the needs of the taxonomy and biodiversity research communities and ensure that we complied with the rules of theInternational Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

In order to comply with ‘the Code’, BioMed Central had toguaranteethat printed copies of papers describing zoological taxa were available at five major publicly accessible libraries. This was a slightly bizarre state of affairs in the digital age, when anyone could simply access the article online.

The ICZN proposed a revision to ‘the Code’ in 2008, to expand the methods of publication allowable and explicitly include electronic publications. Four years later, and after much debate, the ICZN hasnow votedto recognise electronic-only publication as ‘legitimate’ if the publication is registered in the ICZN’s official online registry,ZooBank.

This is a highly significant development for BioMed Central’s online open access journals given the wealth of zoological taxonomic research我们发布.

In一个采访forBMC Evolutionary Biology概述“代码”的更改，Frank-Thorsten Krell博士– Curator of Entomology at the Department of Zoology, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and Commissioner of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and Chair of the ICZN ZooBank Committee – discusses the implications the new code has for authors and Editors.

“We had arrived at the awkward situation that open access papers, having the widest possible availability to readers, were unavailable for nomenclature.”

ICZN专员Frank-Thorsten Krell博士

除了允许在更广泛的资源中出版的出版物外，克雷尔博士还指出，在线开放访问期刊中的出版物实际上在“代码”中的现有要求中改善了广泛传播发现的要求。具有讽刺意味的是，在此变更出版物以晦涩和读写的印刷期刊为单位之前，将符合“代码”的字母，同时排除了受人尊敬的，高度阅读和开放的在线出版物。

The new amendment to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclatures brings zoology in line with the requirements of botanists and mycologists whovoted last yearin favour of electronic publication resulting in an amendment to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi andplants. BioMed Central is updating its editorial policies to ensure that taxonomic publications in our journals conform to the various requirements of each Code.

Thegreat hopeis that MycoBank, ZooBank and other similar online resources will have the transformative effect on taxonomic science that GenBank did for the genomics community. Now the challenge is to fill them with taxonomic data.

Our thanks to the ICZN for fruitful discussions over the years and to our colleagues Matt Cockerill, Philippa Harris, Matt Hodgkinson, Genevieve Horne, Helen Whitaker and Hans Zauner for championing the cause over the last 7 years.

蒂姆·桑兹（Tim Sands）博士
执行Editor, BMC Evolutionary Biology

Elizabeth C Moylan PhD
BMC系列期刊生物学编辑