[Esip-citationguidelines] scooped in 1979

[Mark Parsons]

We’ve known what to do for 200 years and yet we’re still figuring out how to do it. :-)

cheers,

-m. 

> On 28 Oct 2020, at 11:22, Sarah Ramdeen <sarah.ramdeen at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On the topic of old citations, this is one of my favorites.... a letter to the editor from 1817 discussing the value of metadata for physical samples (before the term metadata was cool)
> 
> XLV. On forming collections of geological specimens; and respecting those of Mr. Smith in the British Museum
> https://doi.org/10.1080/14786441708637776 <https://doi.org/10.1080/14786441708637776>
> 
> “[A] fossil shell, petrifaction, or mineral is useless to the geologist, unless it be accompanied with a proper description of the stratum, and of the exact place from whence it was obtained: hence it is necessary that a descriptive catalogue should always accompany a collection of geological specimens” (p.269)  
> 
> On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 12:12 PM Matthew Mayernik via Esip-citationguidelines <esip-citationguidelines at lists.esipfed.org <mailto:esip-citationguidelines at lists.esipfed.org>> wrote:
> Hi Mark,
> Good pointer. There was definitely a fair amount of activity around that time regarding citation of social science data. Another article by Howard White from 1982 (citation below) started with this sentence: "An argument by no means new is that social scientists who work with machine‐readable data files (MRDF) should cite them in their writings, with formal references set apart from main text, just as they now do books, papers and reports". 
> White, H.D. (1982). Citation analysis of data file use. Library Trends, 31(3), 467–477. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/7222 <http://hdl.handle.net/2142/7222> 
> 
> I am always struck by the "by no means new" in that quote. I think it demonstrates how this is a recurring problem that has to be dealt with anew for each generation of researchers and technologies - how/why to cite data.
> 
> Matt
> 
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 4:31 PM Mark Parsons via Esip-citationguidelines <esip-citationguidelines at lists.esipfed.org <mailto:esip-citationguidelines at lists.esipfed.org>> wrote:
> Dodd, S. A. (1979). Bibliographic references for numeric social science data files: Suggested guidelines. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 30(2), 77–82. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.4630300203 <https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.4630300203> 
> 
> If you are paywalled, try: sci-hub.do/10.1002/asi.4630300203 <http://sci-hub.do/10.1002/asi.4630300203>
> 
> A few observations:
> - it grapples with many of the same issues we do - the vagueness of how data are currently referenced, the inadequacy of current standards, the challenge of defining the citable object, the notion of machine readability, the confusion around terms and roles…
> - the elements it defines aren’t that much different than ours. I love “General material designator” sorta like type but also akin to identifier. They also pay good attention to versioning and author roles. Sound familiar?
> - it might have worked if the internet and then the web hadn’t followed so soon after.
> - the conclusion about uptake is charmingly naive (see note about internet above)
> - it notes the need to be able to cite data even before it is archived!
> - more evidence that social science data, especially census data, tend to be pioneers in data science
> 
> cheers,
> 
> -m. 
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> 
> -- 
> Sarah Ramdeen, PhD

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