Partial repost: "Citing an FHL published digitized PDF microfilmed manuscript with compiler as author"

I have emails of the replies to a lost item from the late July server crash. They do not what I posted but do include EE's replies. I am reposting them here now in case they are of later interest.

The beginning of the original post (from the Evidence Explained Facebook page):

eevande wrote:

I am attempting to form a reference note of a typed and hand written manuscript that was microfilmed by the L.D.S. Genealogical Library in Los Angeles, California, 1970, (as written on the title page of the manuscript). The document can now be found both on microfilm via the FHL and through the FamilySearch website....

EE reply:

eevande, you're on the right track but got a bit derailed by an unclear signal. Koon's work was not published in 1970. Koon's work was a manuscript that GSU microfilmed for preservation purposes, but GSU did not publish it.

Manuscripts are cited differently than published works, to indicate that they are a different type of entity. It matters because publications can be purchased through new or old book dealers and are widely available at all kinds of libraries. Manuscripts are available, typically, only through the facility that holds the original or the preservation film. The identity of Koon's work as a manuscript needs to be retained in our citation.

Mixed signals occur in the new online FamilySearch catalog. FamilySearch's tech team, in an effort to strip down its data-entry categories to a minimum (and perhaps not understanding why a distinction is needed) decided to use "publisher" as a generic catch-all for place and responsible parties. Thus, we see "Publication: Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1970." However, the work was filmed for preservation purposes, was not sold by GSU, and access was limited to GSU-FHL. 

However, you will see that the "Notes" section of the catalog description does more clearly identify the work as a "ms. and typescrip."

Considering all of this, what does a current citation need?  The answer depends upon the form you used.

Microfilm: You have two entities to cite:

1. The original work, cited in manuscript format (i.e., two "layers" to the citation);
2. The microfilm reproduction.

Digital version online: You have three entities to cite (three layers)

1. The original work, cited in manuscript format;
2. The online provider’s website identity;
3. The provider’s source-of-the-source info.

A wee bit of tinkering with your citation will accomplish this. For the online version you write:

     1. Cline Morgan Koon, "Two Thousand Descendants of Philip Coon (Koon) of West Virginia : a Genealogical Study of the Family in America" (Salt Lake City, Utah: Family History Library, 1970), [page]; digitized microfilm (https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/454380 : accessed 9 July 2016).

or would it help to insert 'citing FHL microfilm 833,044'?

Following the microfilmed manuscript example at EE 3.19, EE would suggest these two formats for the film and the digital version

FHL microfilm:

          1.      Cline Morgan Koon, "Two Thousand Descendants of Philip Coon (Koon) of West Virginia : A Genealogical Study of the Family in America" (typescript ms., n.p., 1970), [page]; microfilm 833,044, Family History Library, Salt Lake City.

FamilySearch digital image made from the film:

          2.      Cline Morgan Koon, "Two Thousand Descendants of Philip Coon (Koon) of West Virginia : A Genealogical Study of the Family in America" (typescript ms., n.p., 1970), [page]; imaged by FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/454380 : accessed 9 July 2016); citing Family History Library microfilm 833,044.

This approach allows us to avoid another of the problems you raise: the fact that the FamilySearch catalog attributes it to "Salt Lake City, Genealogical Society of Utah," while the cover page to the manuscript says that the preservation film was ade by "L.D.S. Genealogical Library, Los Angeles, California." 

There's also a lesson to be learned here—one that the then-head of FHL, asked me to make in EE when the first edition came out: We should not take our citations from library cataloging data. For accuracy, we need to construct our citations from the source itself.

eevande reply summary:

I then asked about whether Cline Morgan Koon should be an author or compiler.

EE reply:

eevande, on the subject of whether someone is an author or a compiler, also consider the points made in EE 12.8.  Many old genealogies used the word "compiler" when the role was actually that of author. Yes, it's a lot easier to simply copy whatever wording the author put after his or her name; but that ill-serves us from the standpoint of evaluating the quality of a work. When we use a genealogy, we need to make that evaluation of the author's work on a case by case basis. Did the creator of that work just "compile" births, marriages, and deaths into a bare-bones set of begats? Or did the the creator actually do the kind of analysis and original writing that is the hallmark of authors?

As for whether others should be cited, if they are named on the title page as authors, they are typically cited. In this case, the wording says "assisted by," a term generic enough to include someone who typed the manuscript as well as someone who helped with research.

Personally, I have become wary of crediting everyone whose name appears on a title page as something other than the author/compiler. It's a stance I arrived at the hard way when an author consulted research reports of mine that a client had deposited in a research library, drew his own conclusions (as he should have done) from my work and things he had seen elsewhere—including conclusions that differed from mine (to which he was entitled)—but then put my name on the title page of his work as "researched by." If a citation credited me for his work, it would be misleading.

eevande FINAL CITATION:

 39. Cline Morgan Koon, “Two Thousand Descendants of Philip Coon (Koon) of West Virginia : A Genealogical Study of the Family in America” (typescript ms., n.p., 1970), 143; imaged by FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/454380 : accessed 9 July 2016); citing Family History Library microfilm 833,044.

Cover page of item is attached.