Citing an online Book that is digitised text

RobynR, you’ll find an example at 12.52: The John Bouvier book presented as an HTML edition at The Constitution Society.  Also, here at EE’s website, if you’ll search for the term “HTML edition,” you’ll find several more examples.

Your basic instincts are good. You use a layered citation in which the first layer cites the original and the second layer cites the website that delivered it. The extra problem that is introduced when we’re given an HTML version (whether at a website or Kindle, etc.) rather than a digitized image of each page, is this: Without page numbers, how do we cite the specific spot we are quoting or the spot that contains the information we are discussing?

Using EE 12.52 as an example:

        1. John Bouvier, A Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America and of the Several States of the American Union, rev. 6^th ed. (1856); HTML reprint, The Constitution Society (http://www.constitution.org/bouv/bouvier.htm : accessed 1 April 2015), “a vinculo matrimonii.”

Obviously, in the HTML edition, we’ve lost the original page numbers. Therefore, we could not cite the exact page number in Layer 1.

The book is a dictionary organized by “terms” arranged in alphabetical order. Therefore, in Layer 2—in the spot for “exact location,”  the logical means of identifying that location would be to cite the term.

Your example presents this same problem with a different quirk. Again, the HTML edition online does not show page numbers from the original volume. Unlike reasonably short blog postings, we cannot reasonably cite the paragraph number from the whole. However, it does have subheads we we can use for benchmarks, followed by a paragraph number:

     1. “Langford Parish: Langford," in Simon Townley, ed., A History of the County of Oxford, volume 17, Broadwell, Langford, and Kelmscott: Bampton Hundred, Part 4 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer for the Institute of Historical Research, 2012), 175–208; HTML edition, British History Online  (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol17/175-208 : accessed 2 January 2018), “Medieval Tenant Farming,” para. 4.

You’ll notice that I’ve tweaked your draft citation in a couple of other ways. You began your citation with this:

Simon Townley, ed., “Langford Parish: Langford,” A History of the County of Oxford ...

As constructed, that implies that Simon Townley was the editor of just that one chapter, rather than editor of the entire book. That leaves us wondering a couple of things: If Townley edited the chapter, then who was the chapter’s author? And If this is a book with chapters edited/authored by different people, then who was the editor of that book itself?   In this case, Townley was the editor of the entire volume, so his name needs to be attached to the entire volume, not just the chapter.

The other alterations stem from the website's construction of its "suggested citation." While it offers the suggestion as Chicago style, it has two significant deviations from Chicago (and from EE) that can mislead users. 

'Langford Parish: Langford', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 17, ed. Simon Townley (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2012), pp. 175-208. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol17/175-208 [accessed 17 February 2020].

1.  You'll note that the suggested format splits this publication into two separate sentences. That signals to the reader that two separate sources are involved. In a reference note, all essential details for one single source should be within the same sentence.

2. As a rule, Chicago, EE, MLA and other guides do not italicize the volume number—not for books and not for journals. Typically, a published work that consists of several volumes will have a subtitle as well as a title. This is one of those cases.  If it's really a complex set of books, a single volume can be divided into parts that are separately bound, as seems to be the case with this one.  In such cases:

• the title is italicized and the subtitle is italicized.
• the volume number and the "part" number are not part of the title of the book and are not italicized.

I might go one step further here and exaplain that the rule Volume numbers are not italicized as part of the title has an exception, as most rules do. In some situations a volume number will be embedded within a title, as with this book:

Lela C. Adams, Henry County, Virginia, Will Abstracts, vols. I & II, 1777-1820 (Easley, SC: Southern Historical Press, 1985), 85; citing 2: 292-94.

Here, the reference to volume numbers is not telling us that its a combined volume 1 and 2 of Lela Adams' series. Rather, the reference to volume numbers within the title are there to identify the original materials that Adams used.

Thanks for the question. Obviously EE's next edition would benefit from 12.60 having a cross reference to 12.52.

Finally, I notice that you've posted a second question also. I will be out of the office for the rest of the day and have an intractable deadline tonight. It will be tomorrow before I can get to the second question.

Robyn, I'll answer more fully tomorrow, but in the meanwhile, one thought:  "Title of book: Copy exactly from the title page, not the cover or spine." (EE 12.1)  Words on a cover or spine are not the official title under which books are copyrighted and cataloged.

Robyn, following up on the point I noted last night, EE would alter your revised citations to reflect the actual title, not the data on the cover. Many times, the information that the designer or binder puts on the cover is different from the title page. When a book has a long title, that title is often shortened on the cover. Punctuation may be eliminated when words are arranged for a visual, graphic effect. &c &c &c.

EE's revisions would be these:

Source List:

Townley, Simon, editor. A History of the County of Oxford, volume 17, Broadwell, Langford and Kelmscott. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer for the Institute of Historical Research, 2012. HTML edition. British History Online. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol17.

First Reference Note:

Simon Townley, editor, A History of the County of Oxford, volume 17, Broadwell, Langford and Kelmscott , (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer for the Institute of Historical Research, 2012), 175-208; HTML edition, British History Online  (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol17 : accessed 2 January 2018) > "Langford Parish: Langford," para. 4.

Subsequent Note:

Townley, A History of the County of Oxford XVII, 175-208, HTML ed., "Langford Parish: Langford," para. 4.

In addition to the alterations to reflect the exact title, the rest of the tinkering primarily addresses one issue. Details from the original publication should stay together. They should not be commingled with the details for the website.

• "HTML edition" is not a production by the publisher Boydell & Brewer. That firm is the publisher of the print edition. British History Online is the publisher of the HTML edition. Therefore, in the full citation, the edition phrase is moved to Layer 2 where the details of the website and the website edition are presented together.
• Pages 175–208, exist only in the printed version. Therefore that data should appear in Layer 1, not Layer 2.

The other nitpicks are these:

• The Source List Entry should include the edition that you use.
• Within the HTML edition, "Langford Parish: Langford," is one of many menu options at the page to which the URL takes us. That point would be clearer if we use the > symbol that is common to show the path taken when citing digital material.
• I've deleted the comma before the paragraph that contains the publication data. Commas are used to splice parts of a sentence. Parentheses are used to add supplemental data to what comes before it. Therefore, parentheses would not be preceded by a comma that splices apart what was meant to stay together.

One final question. When we click that menu link and we're taken to a new page, we have another group of menu options. The 4th para. below that is actually the 2d paragraph under the 2d header. Is the paragraph to you are pointing the one that begins this way?

"The parish's southern and western boundaries (fn. 5) coincided with those of Berkshire and Gloucestershire, ..."

Yes, that works, Robyn. A waypoint represents an option on which we need to click. Some websites that present HTML versions of books will use hotlinks to take us directly to a section. Others do not.