Charles Davies Sherborn was an indexer. And he followed a long line of indexers. And a longer line of indexers followed him. They/we are all members of ‘The Indexer’s Club’. A club of obsessed individuals who, for some weird reason, find it necessary to not only facilitate a semblance of order, but to make sometimes incredibly huge amounts of information available to others [sacrificing their social lives and labouring on what spouses and colleagues may consider esoteric projects in order to save others from the same work]. And in doing so, encumbering most of the day and the wee hours of the night with a passion and fervour few other human beings can even begin to understand. This presentation will explore the bits of Sherbornís life that led to that passion for indexing; and touch upon the impact he has had on bibliographies and researching the dates of publication; upon nomenclature; and upon the indexing of names ó and it will attempt to explain why he did this and where we all can go as a result.Listen to this episode

ICZN PodCast

Charles Davies Sherborn and The Indexer’s Club

By the late 19th Century, storms plaguing early Victorian systematics and nomenclature seemed to have abated. Vociferous disputes over radical renaming, the world shaking clash of all-encompassing procrustean systems, struggles over centres of authority, and the issues of language and meaning had now been settled by the institution of a stable imperial museum and its catalogues, a set of rules for the naming of zoological objects, and a new professional class of zoologists.  Yet, for all that tranquillity, the disputes simmered below the surface, re-emerging as bitter struggles over synonyms, trinomials, the subspecies category, the looming issues of the philosophy of scientific language, and the aggressive new American style of field biology ñ all pressed in upon the received practice of naming and classifying organisms and the threat of anarchy. In the midst rose an index. This paper will explore the context of CD Sherbornís Index Animalium and those looming problems and issues which a laborious and comprehensive ìindex of natureî was meant to solve.Listen to this episode 

Gordon McOuat: Naming and Necessity: Sherborn’s Context: Cataloguing Nature

Ornithological nomenclature is based on the bibliographic legacy from Charles Davies Sherborn, working in the Natural History Museum, London, and from Charles Wallace Richmond, working at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Despite their significant foundations, a complete data series has not yet been achieved. Gaps in their original coverage, though few, have not been resolved. The post-1850, the end date of coverage of the Index Animalium the level of completeness declines. I will discuss the coverage of the gaps in ornithology and address the primary issues of completeness and accuracy.Listen to this episode 

Edward Dickinson– Reinforcing the foundations: Filling in the bibliographic gaps in the historical legacy

With his delight and enthusiasm for biodiversity, Sir David shares some of his favourite encounters with animals. Prof. Fortey explains why scientific names are more than just labels, with stories of trilobites and field adventures.This was a fundraiser for the ICZN - we thank you for your support. Please consider making a further donation. For information on the work of the ICZN, see our website www.iczn.org.Listen to this episode 

What's in a name? Attenborough & Fortey on animals

The order Diptera (Insecta), flies, is a megadiverse group, representing some 15% or more of the known species of organisms. Scientific names are tags to concepts (hypotheses), called species, by which we organize our knowledge of biodiversity. Our Systema Dipterorum provides an index to all scientific names related to flies, so access to our knowledge about them is readily available. Sherborn more than a century ago attempted to provide such an index to all animal names. He did provide an index to all names published up until and including 1850. We compare our indexes, revealing how standards have changed and the number of names increased. Today, more and better resources are being made available to us, such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and our standards are higher (new International Code of Zoological Nomenclature), but regardless of all the change, Sherborn for his time provided an almost perfect (99.9%) index.Listen to this episode 

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