Series of Directories First books, now online

By Anonymous on Thu, 05/01/2014 - 04:06

Forums

Hi,

I'm trying to work out which source citation is going to be best for a series of (thick heavy) books that in their time where the equivalent of today's phone books but with loads of extra important information for the people of that time, and easily held 1500-2000 pages.  They were published yearly for around 75 years (1858-1933) only missing a handful of years in that time.

At some stage they were put onto Microfiche, but in recent years those microfiche have been converted to images and PDF format which are now available online in a fully searchable PDF database of the original directory.

I am going to need to cite multiple issues of this book for a number of different people, with each book being the source of data for different items (residence, occupation, general information of the area etc); and with each citation having the same agency of editors, the same publishers, the same directory name, the same everything - the only thing changing each time being the year in which it was published. I also need to include the web address of this resource as I don't personally have access to the microfilm. The other thing I ideally want to do, is identify which column the entry is located in, the print is small and there are 3 columns to a page on the vast majority of the pages.

Because I use Legacy 8, I wanted to use the Source Writer templates to help get the citation formatting right.  I looked at

  • Books > Edited by an Agency > Online book - Looks good, but to use it I would need to have a citation entry for each individual year (is that a good or bad thing though, I don't know) and there would be no way to clearly define which entry I was looking at and where on the page it was located
  • Directories > Online Database - while I can identify the entry I'm looking at, there is no clear and consistent way that I can identify which year, page or where on the page
  • Directories > Online Images - seems the most logical, but there is no way to clearly identify which entry or where on the page it's located.
  • Newspapers > Online images (issued by unrelated provider) - not the right genre and would be long-term problematical in having to enter the bulk of the same data each time, but it does at least allow me to specify the entry, the page and the column - but it's a poor alternative.

Is there another citation template that I've missed that is going to be the best way to cite this online based book resource?

Thanks

Submitted byPK-KTKon Thu, 05/01/2014 - 04:08

oh - the website of the source is
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/learn/search-our-collections/sands-directory

Submitted byEEon Thu, 05/01/2014 - 10:19

PK-KTK:

You've done a great job of demonstrating how citation problems are universal. The U.S. has this same complex situation in which the original city directories were reduced to microform, then later imaged and placed online.

We cannot offer guidance for any particular software's citation templates. We can give you general guidance. 

1. Essentially, you are citing a book. More particularly, a city directory. EE provides several models for city directories at 12.55-12.59, where we address different quirks involved. Column designation can be handled in the same way we do for newspapers: after citing the page, cite the column.

2. To your basic citation for the book, you will need to add the digital edition in which you viewed it—that is, a citation to the website. EE also offers  numerous examples of how to add a website citation onto the basic citation for a book or record; for example, 12.52 or the QuickCheck Model on p. 661.

You'll also find a model that combines the two parts on EE's QuickSheet: Citing Ancestry.com Database & Images, in its section for "City Directories: Images." https://www.evidenceexplained.com/magento/.

 

Submitted byPK-KTKon Thu, 05/01/2014 - 19:51

Thanks for the guidance.

Supplemental question - in your opinion, which of the following three is going to be the most accurate

John Sands Ltd (Printers and Stationers), Sands Sydney, Suburban and Country Commercial Directory, 71 vols., 1920: 785, col 1; digital images, Sands Directory - City of Sydney http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/learn/search-our-collections/sands-directory : accessed 2 May 2014; Holden Henry H., "Vermont"

John Sands Ltd (Printers and Stationers), editor, Sands Sydney, Suburban and Country Commercial Directory; PDF Download, Sands Directory - City of Sydney (http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/learn/search-our-collections/sands-directory : downloaded 2 May 2014), 758, col 1; Holden Henry H., "Vermont"

John Sands Ltd (Printers and Stationers), editor, Sands Sydney, Suburban and Country Commercial Directory (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: John Sands Ltd (Printers and Stationers), 1920), 1920: 785, col 1. Cit. Date: 2 May 2014; Holden Henry H., "Vermont"; http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/learn/search-our-collections/sands-directory

or am I just splitting hairs now?

PK-KTK:

No, you are not splitting hairs. There are significant differences in the three. Most of the essentials are there in one version or another, but in different combinations. Let's walk through the issues:

Version 1 does not follow the standard format for citing publication data for either the book or the website, it includes data that one would not normally cite for a city directory (the total number of years/volumes published across time), and it separates the page number from the specific data found on the page.

Version 2 nicely cites the website but omits publication data for the book; it also separates the page number from the specific page on which the data is found.

Version 3 uses the standard format for citing a book's publication data, but then uses a different format for citing the website publication.  For consistency, both should use the same basic format. Here, too, the specific data is separated from the page on which it appears, although—in this case—the two are separated by the date on which you cite your source.

When I compare your citation to the image of the title page at the link you provide, I also note a couple of differences:

  • The year of the directory is part of the title although it is not included in any of the three versions above, and the title actually differs from what you show above. (Most long-running directories did change titles occasionally; but, when we're citing one specific year, we should cite what is on the title page for that year.)
  • This volume identifies no editor, author, or compiler—in which event, we would not redundantly insert the name of the publisher in that field.

Using the volume at the link to which you point, EE's recommendation would be this:

Sands' Sydney Suburban and Country Directory for 1920 (Sydney, NSW, Australia: John Sands, 1920), p. 1350, col. 1, for "Holden, Harry, Mutual st, Penshurst”; City of Sydney, SANDS directory 1920 to 1924 (http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/learn/search-our-collections/sands-directory : accessed 2 May 2014).

You'll also note that I simplified the name of the publisher, following the basic rule at 12.1 (the start of the chapter on citing books): "Suffixes that denote the kind of company, such as Inc. and Ltd., are commonly dropped." This is not just "EE style." It is common practice across almost all citation guides.