At Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:39:42 +0100,
O.Stephens wrote:
>
> Thanks Erik,
>
> Yes - generally references to web sites require a 'route of access'
> (i.e. URL) and 'date accessed' - because, of course, the content of
> the website may change over time.
>
> Strictly you are right - if you are going to link to the resource it
> should be to the version of the page that was available at the time
> the author accessed it. This time aspect is something I'm thinking
> about more as a result of the conversations on this thread. The
> 'date accessed' seems like a good way of differentiating different
> possible resolutions of a single URL. Unfortunately references don't
> have a specified format for date, and they can be expressed in a
> variety of ways - typically you'll see something like 'Accessed 14
> September 2009', but as far as I know it could be 'Accessed
> 14/09/09' or I guess 'Accessed 09/14/09' etc.
>
> It is also true that the intent of a reference can vary - sometimes
> the intent is to point at a website, and sometimes to point to the
> content of a website at a moment in time (thinking loosely in FRBR
> terms I guess you'd say that sometimes you want to reference the
> work/expression, and sometimes the manifestation? - although I know
> FRBR gets complicated when you look at digital representations, a
> whole other discussion)
>
> To be honest, our project is not going to delve into this too much -
> limited both by time (we finish in February) and practicalities (I
> just don't think the library/institution is going to want to look at
> snapshotting websites, or finding archived versions for each course
> we run - I suspect it would be less effort to update the course to
> use a more current reference in the cases this problem really
> manifests itself).
>
> One of the other things I've come to realise is that although it is
> nice to be able to access material that is referenced, the reference
> primarily recognises the work of others, and puts your work into
> context - access is only a secondary concern. It is perfectly
> possible and OK to reference material that is not generally
> available, as a reader I may not have access to certain material,
> and over time material is destroyed so when referencing rare or
> unique texts it may become absolutely impossible to access the
> referenced source.
>
> I think for research publications there is a genuine and growing
> issue - especially when we start to consider the practice of
> referencing datasets which is just starting to become common
> practice in scientific research. If the dataset grows over time,
> will it be possible to see the version of the dataset used when
> doing a specific piece of research?

You might find the WebCite service [1] to be of some use. Of course it
cannot work retroactively, so it is best if researchers use it
in the first place.

best,
Erik Hetzner

1. http://www.webcitation.org/
;; Erik Hetzner, California Digital Library
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