Therefore, criteria for evaluating the value of present and future paleontological collections must be developed. The status of systematics in paleontology has changed, however. Because of these realities, paleoinformatics is needed to provide the continuity of access to and development of systematic information on which all paleontologists depend. Moreover, the existence of such a system will stimulate systematic research, especially from individuals who have access to fossils in remote localities but lack the requisite access to libraries, collections, and experts necessary to complete their systematic research. Electronic versions of these and other, presently smaller, databases will have an even larger impact.
Older literature presents a special problem.
Although older literature is extremely important to systematic research, its post hoc conversion to electronic formats is widely regarded as being more time and labor intensive than the production of new systematic data, much of which is developed in electronic formats. Collaborations between computer scientists and paleontological systematists can be very fruitful but would be most readily facilitated within the structure of an overall paleoinformatics initiative. In the next century, regardless of the personal feelings of individual paleontologists, electronic media and the dissemination of nonstructured, distributed data will supplant the current modes of communication. Development of a practical paleontological informatics system will be neither easy nor inexpensive. Indeed, it may severely tax the resources of the entire paleontological community for some time to come.