Personal correspondence or an archive?

By mbcross on Tue, 01/14/2025 - 16:02

Forums

I received some documents via email from a librarian. I am tempted to cite them as part of an archive, but I also know we should cite what we use, and I have not physically visited this library, so should I cite the email I received or the archives from which the attached documents came?

 

Thanks!

Submitted byEEon Wed, 01/15/2025 - 08:32

Hello, mbcross. The three basic questions your citation needs to answer are

  1. What do you have?
  2. Where is the original?
  3. How did you get it? 

The question posed by your last 17 words falls into area: How did you get it? So, yes, that's needed.

EE has other examples for citing deocuments sent by an archive, or a library, or an agency office. For example, EE4, 6.8, n. 11, the last sentence.