Citing images of bound content in special collections that has been digitized

By cwhermann28 on Sat, 01/15/2022 - 19:58

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I am trying to cite an image from a bound volume of photocopies of NARA records that is contained in a collection at a library, but has also been imaged. Some examples on this site and EE indicate the website and the collection could be combined into one layer, but I don't see how to do that since the website collection and archive collection have different titles.

The bound volume is described as consisting of 448 photocopied pages and imprinted on the spine of the volume are the words "Nez Perce Indians Land Allotments Register," with a note the original is in Record Group 75, NARA, Washington D.C.

This bound volume is in the collection "Register of Indian Families at the Nez Perce Agency, 1884-1909" Special Collections and Archives at the University of Idaho Library.

This bound volume has been digitized at a website owned by the University of Idaho, but the digital collection is titled "Register of Indigenous people at the Nez Perce Agency," and also contains other work.

My first attempt was 3 layers, one for the unpublished volume, one for the special collection and one for the website. With the rule you should site what you have/see and since the first 31 images of the bound volume seem to be a non-paginated index of entries on the remaining paginated pages, the only way to locate the entry/information being cited is by image number, I thought that should be the first layer as below.

“Register of Indigenous people at the Nez Perce Agency,” browsable images, University of Idaho, Idaho Harvester, (https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/items/lumber1060.html : downloaded 14 October 2021) > image XXX of XXX; page XXX, [entry annotation]; digitized from, Unknown, “Nez Perce Indians Land Allotments Register,” bound photocopied pages, citing National Records and Archives Administration Record Group 75 Washington, D.C.; "Register of Indian Families at the Nez Perce Agency, MG221", Special Collections and Archives, University of Idaho Library, Moscow, Idaho.

Also not sure how to structure the short footnote and bibliography.

Thanks for any help with this.

Submitted byEEon Sun, 01/16/2022 - 10:16

Cwherman28, this being a Sunday morning, I am tempted to begin with Lordy! Lordy! Lordy!  What an identification mess the digital world has created for researchers, while simultaneously making records more accessible.

You wrote:

My first attempt was 3 layers, one for the unpublished volume, one for the special collection, and one for the website.

This would work with one modification—a sequence switch for Layers 2 and 3.  When we create a three-layer citation for an original volume or collection, imaged at a website, the sequence is this:

  • Layer 1 would cite the unpublished volume.
  • Layer 2 should cite the website at which you accessed the images.
  • Layer 3 (the source-of-your-source layer) would cite the University of Idaho archives. You did not go to the archives. For everything in that layer your knowledge is dependent upon what the website says about where the original book can be found. 

But, read on …

This website helpfully offers a citation. Curiously, the provider’s “preferred citation” tells us nothing about the accessibility of this record online, which is where we’ve actually used it. It cites only the physical archives and, given the conglomeration of materials combined in this digital download, who knows what form we'd find in that physical archives. The suggested citation itself seems to say that the source is a register within a register, which would be puzzling to the readers of our citation (or to us, after our recollection of this source has gone cold) without some sort of explanation.

And then, there are these issues:

  • As you note, the digital volume, which is downloadable, incorporates 56 pages from an entirely different bound volume at an entirely different archive (an index from the National Archives). The “preferred citation” has no reference to this. We then have to ask ourselves: Does the citation need to include this?
  • The insertion of the one-volume index from NA into the digital edition of a different bound volume is a help for users of the register itself; but the digitized offering presents another puzzle. After those 56 pages, there appears another index that runs through p. 112. The fact that the second index is also 56 pages suggests it may be a duplication for some reason. As a user, we would need to compare the two and see why this situation exists. But the decision we make would go beyond the confines of the citation unless we decide to add an explanation in our working notes—which may be a very good idea in this case. Having mentally wrestled with everything at this first usage of the volume, would you want to have to do it all over again a year or five years from now if your research leads you back to another use of this volume?
  • Image 113, which represents the title page for the volume at NARA, carries a penned notation “437 pages.” However, the digital volume we download as a PDF has only 275 images and it does not present multiple pages per image. As researchers, we would want to sort out why the PDF has only 275 images if the original volume has 448 pages. (Meanwhile, you note that the website’s description of this volume states that it consists of 448 photocopied pages.)
  • The “original” register (technically a photocopy thereof), which begins on image 113, carries stamped page numbers. Image 130, for example, is stamped p. 17.

All things considered:

  1. It’s a new volume, a new creation by the University of Idaho.  If it were published in print, it would be a simple book citation, perhaps followed by a discussion of its content.
  2. It has not, however, been issued as a standalone publication--not in print or at the website. Instead, it is a digital manuscript that is just one offering at the much-larger website.
  3. The creator assigns it a subservient title placed in quotation marks—as with a chapter in a book or an article or database at a website.

Observations 2 and 3 point to the simplest way to handle it: as just another titled offering at a website. That would reduce the citation to two layers—which harks back to your initial statement: “Some examples on this site and EE indicate the website and the collection could be combined into one layer, but I don't see how to do that since the website collection and archive collection have different titles.”

Here’s how to do that (using color to distinguish between the layers):

Full Reference Note:

“Register of Indigenous People at the Nez Perce Agency [1884],” PDF download, Idaho Harvester: Blog & Working Collection of Unique Materials from the University of Idaho Library, Special Collections & Archives Department (https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/items/lumber1060.html : 16 January 2022), image XXX, being stamped page YY; citing “‘register of Indigenous people at the Nez Perce Agency’ [the digital volume], Register of Indian families at the Nez Perce Agency [the collection], MG 221, Idaho Harvester [the series], Special Collections & Archives, University of Idaho Library.” 

EE would then add, to our working note, a discussion that would include at least this point:

The first 56 pages of this digital volume is titled “Index to Register of Families in the Nez Perce Agency." It is imaged from a separate volume identified in the digital volume as “National Archives and Records administration. Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Entry 571. Enrollment Records. Registry of Nez Perce Indians.”

This treatment of the digitized volume as a titled offering at a website that offers many things then simplifies the Subsequent (Shortened) Reference Note and the Source List Entry—a point you also asked about:

Subsequent Reference Note:

“Register of Indigenous People at the Nez Perce Agency [1884],” image XXX, being stamped page YY.

Source List Entry:

“Register of Indigenous People at the Nez Perce Agency [1884].” PDF download. Idaho Harvester: Blog & Working Collection of Unique Materials from the University of Idaho Library, Special Collections & Archives Department. https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/items/lumber1060.html : 2022.

(and/or)

Idaho Harvester: Blog & Working Collection of Unique Materials from the University of Idaho Library, Special Collections & Archives Department. https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/items/lumber1060.html : 2022.

Submitted bycwhermann28on Sun, 01/16/2022 - 19:59

EE,

Thank you very much.  Your recommended citation meets the needs for anything I might publish, and the rest of the background information on the PDF will remain in my research log.  My challenge now is to get that into a database template.

I think I can clear up some of the inconsistencies you noted, but it is still a mess. This also leads to a couple of additional questions.

Clarification:

In my research of the digital images, I had located a description of the physical collection at:

(https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv14474/)

 The content description provided on this site states the collection contains three separate items:

  • the bound volume, consisting of 448 pages, the first 31 being an index
  • a collection of photocopied pages from NA RG 75, Entry 572, consisting of 437 pages
  • a collection of photocopied pages form NA RG 75, Entry 571, noted as an index to the second item, stating:  "This item consists of 56 pages and includes a second copy of the pages.".

The University then digitized the special collection as 2 different downloadable PDFs - both titled the same but with slightly different URLs. I have uploaded an screen shot from the digital collections page bellow. 

The PDF on the left has the URL (https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/items/lumber1059.html) and consists of 448 images.  The total number of digital images (the first 31 of which are an index) match the description of the bound volume in the first item.

The PDF on the right has the URL (https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/items/lumber1060.html) and consists of only 275 images.  The first 112 digital images match the description of the third item, 56 pages and the copy.  On close examination, the second 56 pages are not exactly the identical so it is good they included all the pages and should probably update the description. I assume the remaining pages are from the second item.  Either they did not digitize the entire second item or it does not contain 437 pages as described. Without comparing to the physical collection there is no way to tell.

I did go to the NA website, but unfortunately none of these records are digitized, so this is the best info I have.

I am not sure I would use the PDF "on the right" given all the inconsistencies, so the citation I prepared was based on the first PDF, but I had mistakenly used the URL for the second PDF with all the inconsistencies you noted.  I apologize for the added confusion to an already complicated issue.

Questions: 

1) I included the reference to the NA records in my citation based on the content description for the physical collection. Is the reason you did not included it in your citation because there is no reference to the NA record group noted in the digital images and/or website where the PDFs are located?

2) The imaged pages contain entries for more than one individual so I feel I need to add an [Item of Interest] to the citation.  Based on, EE models I want to confirm, this would be added to the Full Reference Note as part of the first layer of your recommendation as follows:

“Register of Indigenous People at the . . . 2022), image XXX, being stamped page YY, [Item of Interest]; citing “‘register of Indigenous . . . Special Collections & Archives, University of Idaho Library.”

3) Since there are two different PDFs, I assume they should be treated as two separate volumes, each with their own citation. Is it proper to use two citations which are basically identical other than the URL? (and the only difference in the URL is the lumber1059 vs lumber 1060).

Thanks again,

Curt

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Submitted byEEon Tue, 01/18/2022 - 15:48

Q1: “I included the reference to the NA records in my citation based on the content description for the physical collection. Is the reason you did not included it in your citation because there is no reference to the NA record group noted in the digital images and/or website where the PDFs are located?”

Answer:

Hmhh. The digital images do have a reference to the NA record group. It’s on the first page of the digital volume that we worked with yesterday. I did include it in a suggested “further information” note to add to the citation. Including it within your citation itself (rather than in a separate comment) only muddles the citation without adding anything useful.

As a rule of thumb, a reference to a NARA record group is basically useless without a full citation that includes the path one follows within that RG in order to drill down to the exact document. Look at any of the NARA citations in Chapter 11, for the use of records physically onsite, and you’ll see just how much detail about collections, series, subgroups, etc., is needed for an RG citation to be usable.

The “source-of-the-source” that the "further information" note quotes exactly from the first image is not a full NARA citation. It is a bit of short-hand that NARA archivists have used for decades, even though it mixes peas and apples. Within NARA’s RG 75, there is no one set of records that is found by going into the stacks and looking for  "RG 75, Entry 751.”  That entry number actually represents an entry in Hill’s descriptive catalog of material held by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is now antiquated but still useful to study.

*Edward E. Hill, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2 vols., Preliminary Inventories no. 163 (Washington: NARS, 1965), 1: 163, entry 571.

NARA has many of these working inventories and preliminary inventories that are used in house, were printed for distribution to researchers, and are available online now through Google Books and similar sites. However: NARA’s own citation guidelines for scholars does not ever use those entry numbers. When we, as researchers, cite Hill’s entry number, it would be cited as part of a citation to Hill’s work itself.*  I didn’t get into all this yesterday because you weren’t actually using materials you gleaned from NARA. 

 

Q2: “The imaged pages contain entries for more than one individual so I feel I need to add an [Item of Interest] to the citation.”

Answer:

As a comparable example: when you cite a page in a book would you feel a need to specify which sentence on a page you are referencing?  As a rule: whether it is necessary to identify a specific person or numbered entry on a page would depend upon whether we had named that person in the text to which the citation is attached. 

 

Q3: Since there are two different PDFs, I assume they should be treated as two separate volumes, each with their own citation. Is it proper to use two citations which are basically identical other than the URL? (and the only difference in the URL is the lumber1059 vs lumber 1060).

Answer:

As a corollary: If you use two different books, even on the same subject and in the same library, you are still using two different books and would need to cite two different books. 

In this case,

  • the URL you specified yesterday presented just one PDF (https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/items/lumber1060.html).
  • The snippet you have just attached presents two different PDF offerings, side by side, with the same title but with a different image and a different URL from the one we used yesterday: (https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/collection/browse.html&register):
  • Yesterday’s URL was one step further along the website's structural path than the more-general page you’ve presented today.

Using today’s URL:

  • If we click on the image that is “manuscript” PDF link, it opens up yet another URL (a catalog page with a URL that ends 1059). There, we have the option to download a PDF of 447 pp. Clicking the download actually opens the PDF there at the site, with a URL that ends in _b01sm.pdf.
  • If we click on the image that is a typed page, it opens up a different website, with a different URL (the catalog page we used yesterday, ending in 1060). Clicking that opens up a PDF of 275 pp., with a URL that ends in _b02a.pdf.

Bottom line: We cite what we use.