[1090] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Library Automation Questions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bernard Lang)
Fri Aug 28 15:56:38 1992
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 14:22:41 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
-------------------------------
From: rdebrece@alsvid.une.edu.au
Subject: Re: formats for bibliographic data
My vote goes to the BibTex/Refer format so that the document can be read
into ProCite, EndNote or one of the mainframe based bibliographic packages
...
Roger Debreceny
--------------------------------
Indeed, this is a most commonly used format, ... for lack of anything
better. But in my view it is very inadequate.
Many situations cannot be handled, e.g. a conference proceeding that
is also an issue of 2 distinct journals, all 3 being the same
document. Or a PhD dissertation which is also a technical report. And
what about authors who keep changing the spelling of their names. I
once made a list of such problem and it was long enough to make me
quite dissatisfied. I did not make up any of them, but encountered
them in my work (and I am not a librarian, just a CS researcher).
I doubt there is a universal system, but existing one could be
greatly improved with a little bit of thinking and experience (in
reverse order), without going to the extremes of UNESCO 500 pages
standards (I have not really counted, but it is big).
This being said, BibTex/Refer format is certainly a nice first step.
I would also emphasize that a bibliographic database is most useful
when it can be directly used to incorporate citation in documents,
which is precisely the purpose of the BibTex/Refer format. However,
they become unmanageable when the database becomes large.
Bernard Lang
