Taxonomy has historically been relegated to the back alleys of the publishing world. In-house museum journals, obscure regional or specialty publications and even more obscure foreign language academy reports have hidden many species descriptions, revisions and monographs from the eyes of interested biologists. Not to say this is the only reason for current crisis in taxonomy (see Rodman & Cody 2003), but it certainly contributes. The hard work and insurmountable dedication of the taxonomist to furthering their group of interest should be rewarded and not locked away for the other 5 people in the world working on that genus of organism. Ecologists rely on species descriptions to compare the fauna they find in their studies with the published literature. The imperative nature of correct identifications of species cannot be understated in the medical, infectious disease, and parasitology literature. Without a doubt, quality taxonomic research is invaluable, in high demand and highly underappreciated by funding agencies and other scientists, even those who rely on such work (PEET not withstanding)

The lack of visibility of taxonomic research and the failure to make systematics as a whole relevant to the everyday lives of people has been a burden on the community. Much of the work is tedious yet vital to biodiversity studies, medicine and biotechnology. IrregardlessIrrespective of how one chooses to define a species, the species debate, the issue of perception is pervasive in this field. Many taxonomists are made to feel inferior to their colleagues doing experimental work who bring in much larger grants. The truth of the matter is that taxonomy is not a profitable venture for academic institutions why rely in part on the money they skim off of grants. It is a traditionally an inexpensive field, even with the use of molecular tools to aid in phylogenetic reconstructions. You can easily get by with a microscope, computer and digital camera. DNA extractions are relatively inexpensive and you can send the DNA product off to get analyzed elsewhere affordably, not needing to purchase expensive sequencing equipment.

Taxonomists need to improve the visibility and relevance of the field to ensure a continued, or at the least renewed, interest for the study of species, either from a theoretical, philosophical or practical framework. One way to contribute to increasing the visibility of taxonomic research is to publish in Open Access (OA). Several studies have shown there to be a citation advantage in OA papers (Eysenbach 2006). Zootaxa has taken the initiative in the taxonomy world by offering to publish any peer-reviewed taxonomic work free of charge for subscriber access and $20/page for OA. Other taxonomic "niche" journals exist with various financial differences, but have yet to attain the reputation of Zootaxa to my knowledge. But it is my own feeling that Zootaxa is only known well among other taxonomists, with the majority of other beneficiaries either unable to obtain articles because the bulk of the articles are locked behind the subscriber wall. This also has the effect of making less text available for search engines, such as Google Scholar.