[DCRM-L] Citing ESTC

[Noble, Richard]

It may be late to jump in on this, but I'm not sure I see any gain in
adding "(on-line)", especially without a date. I used to enter e.g.
"ESTC (RLIN 2004)", which might serve to explain a subsequent
discrepancy (i.e. to make clear that it wasn't a cataloger error); but
what's the point of adding plain "on-line"? We know the database is
dynamic, that a citation may become obsolete, and that this will have
happened regardless of the version of the database consulted for the
particular citation.

Or is it understood that "ESTC (CD-ROM)" and "ESTC (microfiche ...)"
will continue to be used as a caveat--a warning that "this citation may
obsolete on arrival"? In which case "on-line" is a sort of positive
negative, meaning "Really, folks, my 510 was based on the most
up-to-date version of the database (though it's up to you to guess when
I looked it up)."

On the other hand, without the intervening parens, it's possible to do
reasonably easy citation searches via keyword phrase, "estc <ID
number>". It would almost be worth going through all my records to clear
out the undergrowth, to make that possible.

RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN
UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 :
RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU 

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of Elizabeth Robinson
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 12:12 PM
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: Fwd: RE: [DCRM-L] Citing ESTC


Here's the follow-up. The present proposal is for all
the old, out-of-date citation forms (BLAISE, RLIN,
microfiche [both editions], and CD-ROM) to remain
noted in SCF as background info for present records
that have such in their 510s (my suggestion). But for
new work, the citation form would be 

ESTC (on-line)

As noted yesterday, this was agreed to by Henry Snyder
and Juliet McLaren, the initial question of what form
for post-RLIN ESTC raised by Alan Degutis of AAS.
Moira Goff at BL was also consulted. 

Some rationale from Henry: "It occurs to me there
might be another alternative, ESTC (online). There are
several hundred accounts working off our webpage. It
is the same file, if you like a generic one,
accessible through two webpages, bl and ucr. This
would cover both or any other form of access that
might be devised in the future. What we really want to
indicate is the information is derived from the online
access and implicit is the fact that it is under
constant revision ..."

Juliet suggested (and Henry later agreed) to the
hyphenated "on-line".

I have not yet moved this forward through CPSO and
CDS, so if there is anything further, Randal, would
you please cc me at the erob at loc.gov address on the
final verdict? 

Thanks much.