[Sca-librarians] TI Bibliography Format

[Solveig Throndardottir]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

> And we should note that there's going to be a 120 word max now
> on bibliographies. This has to be added to the bibliography format  
> page.

This is scandalous! If you are to limit bibliographies to 120 words  
total, then you
might as well dispense with them altogether. TI tends to be one of  
the more
worthless publications of the Society anyway.

> "The bibliography/sources/endnotes is/are limited to 120 words. In  
> order to allow interested members to get the complete information,  
> authors are asked to supply the additional information to the  
> Corporate offices to keep on file for requests and (if available)  
> list their e-mail address as a contact."

This is extremely inefficient, burdens the corporate office, and is a  
major obstacle to obtaining bibliographic information. Further, it  
impedes proper attestation of sources in TI articles.

> I personally think this means that sources should be divided into  
> major sources and then further reading sources that are available  
> through the publications office or from the author via e-mail?

Highly unreliable. Authors die.

> What do you think?

BARF!

> By the way MS Word counts a website as one word no matter how long  
> or how many words it contains.

In general, DOUBLE BARF! Most web pages are unstable. Many stable web  
pages are unreliable.
In general, WEB pages should be avoided in documentation. There are  
some notable exceptions
such as the Japanese Text Initiative, Project Guttenberg, &c.

> If anyone is willing to review it, here are my notes: It is close  
> to MLA with the exception of underlining being converted to  
> italics, and other typographical preferences. I did delete one item  
> on the web-page listing (date reviewed) because TI has such a long  
> life span (and articles can be in the files for years before being  
> published) that the point is moot. The creation date should be  
> enough. Also, if the abbreviations section needs to be amplified,  
> please let me know.

MLA is overrated. Each field tends to have fairly specific  
expectations. For example, Speculum has its own guide
as does Monumenta Nipponica. Other quirks of Japanese scholarship  
are: there are standard multi-volume
collections of medieval and ancient works. These are usually cited by  
abbreviation such as ZGR 19.2. Also, Tokyo
never appears as the publication city.

There is a flaw in the citation style as the same author may have  
multiple works citied.
Very few scholarly publications will go with author name alone.  
Rather, they will go with either
citation number or author-date at the beginning of the citation.

MAGAZINE ARTICLES?? BLEH!  --- THINK JOURNAL ARTICLES !!!
The citation standards are completely different. They should include  
volume and issue numbers
and in some cases series identifier as well.

Another thing which is absent from the proposed standards is the  
series in
book citations. For example, GTM (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) 39.

I really doubt that its necessary to put quotes around article names  
if you are italicizing publication names.

Finally, if you really want to help people find books, include the  
ISBN. The ISBN is the easiest method for
looking up books on WorldCat and other computerized card catalogues.  
Which is most card catalogues
these days. Further, the ISBN identifies specific editions of the  
same title. The ISSN can help people find
periodicals, but it is less used.

Your Humble Servant
Solveig Throndardottir
Amateur Scholar



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