----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Summary: Online Citations - Part 2 Other opinions hold that online references are useful in spite of these shortcomings, and can't/shouldn't be ignored. Michael A. Domaratz <[log in to unmask]> provided a detailed description of the format developed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee's work on the metadata standard to cite online reference material. It's 129 lines long so I'll not include it here (I'll explain how to get the full, unedited version in just a bit), but it seems to cover just about everything there is to list in a citation. He also listed the follwoing references: Clark, Suzanne, Larsgaard, Mary, and Teague, Cynthia, 1992, Cartographic citations: A style guide: Chicago, American Library Association, Map and Geography Roundtable. Dodd, Susan, 1982, Cataloging machine-readable data files: Chicago, American Library Association. Hansen, Wallace R., 1991, Suggestions to Authors of the Reports of the United States Geological Survey (7th ed.): Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office. Li, Xia, and Crane, Nancy, 1993, Electronic style: A guide to citing electronic information: Westport, Connecticut, Meckler Publishing. Network Development and MARC Standards Office, 1988, USMARC format for bibliographic data: Washington, Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service. Patrias, Karen, 1991 (April), National Library of Medicine recommended formats for bibliographic citations: Bethesda, Maryland, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine. He further mentions that Patrias (1991) and Li and Crane (1993) discuss citations of all forms of materials, and may be the most helpful in the FAQ reference question. Although no one brought this up in the respones I recieved, I think I'll mention a pointer to information about the Universal Resource Locator, or URL, because the URL seems to me like the best available convention that I've see so far for providing a machine-readable pointer to an online resource. It can handle FTP, telnet, gopher, Prospero, http, and even e-mail type resources. There's also a scheme for extending the definition to include new resources as they develop. The document "Uniform Resource Locators (URL) A Syntax for the Expression of Access Information of Objects on the Network" by Tim Berners-Lee appears to be the authoritative source for information about the URL. I found the latest copy by gopher searching for "Brenners-Lee", and found it straight away. The document I have expires on Sept 21, 1994, and also specifically addresses this citation problem stating, `Internet Drafts are working documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a "working draft" or "work in progress".' If you want to get this yourself, it's available in hypertext form, with links to background information, as: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/URL/Overview.html You can also use FTP to connect to info.cern.ch, and get a plain text copy (this info on FTP is about 4 months old, but it worked for me then). That's it for the suummary. Thanks to all who responded. I can see several interesting issues boiling here just under the surface of this issue, and hopefully this provides some real info and some food for thought. If you want the raw grist for your mills, I'll send the 280-line uncut version of responses to anyone who asks for it. _ /| Bill Thoen \'o.O' -------------------------------------------------------------- =(___)= BBS .....: GISnet BBS 303-447-0927 (GIS & Mapping) U Internet : [log in to unmask] --- ~ GISnet BBS 303-447-0927 Boulder, Colorado