Earlier today, there was a discussion on Twitter on citing Early Modern English books seen on EEBO. But 140 characters is not enough to get my view across, so here ’tis instead.<\/p>\n
The question: how<\/em> should you cite a book viewed on EEBO in your bibliography?<\/strong><\/p>\n When it comes to digitized<\/em> sources, many if not most of us probably instinctively cite the original source, rather than the digitized version. This makes sense \u2013 the digital version is a surrogate of the original work that we are really consulting. However, digitizing requires a lot of effort and investment, so when you view a book on EEBO but only cite the original work, you are not giving credit where it is due. After all, consider how easy it now is to access thousands of books held in distant repositories, simply by navigating to a website (although only if your institution has paid for access). This kind of facilitation of research should not be taken for granted.<\/p>\n (What’s more,\u00a0digital scholarship is not yet getting the credit it deserves \u2013 and as a creator of digital resources myself, I feel quite strongly that this needs to change.)<\/p>\n Anyway; so how should you cite a work you’ve read in EEBO, then?<\/p>\n This is what the EEBO FAQ<\/a> says (edited slightly; bold<\/strong>\u00a0emphasis mine):<\/p>\n When citing material from\u00a0EEBO, it is helpful to give the publication details of the original print source as well as those of the electronic version. You can view the original publication details of works in\u00a0EEBO\u00a0by clicking on the Full Record icon that appears on the Search Results, Document Image and Full Text page views, as well as on the list of Author’s Works.<\/span><\/p>\n Joseph Gibaldi’s\u00a0MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers<\/em>, 7th ed. (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2009), deals with citations of online sources in section 5.6, pp.181-93. For works on the web with print publication data, the\u00a0MLA Handbook<\/em>\u00a0suggests that details of the print publication should be followed by (i) the title of the database or web site<\/strong>, (ii) the medium of publication consulted<\/strong> (i.e. ‘Web’), and (iii) the date of access<\/strong> (see 5.6.2.c, pp. 187-8).<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026 When including URLs in\u00a0EEBO\u00a0citations, use the blue Durable URL button that appears on each Document Image and Full Record display to generate a persistent URL for the particular page or record that you are referencing. It is not advisable to copy and paste URLs from the address bar of your browser as these will not be persistent.<\/span><\/p>\n Here is an example based on these guidelines:<\/span><\/p>\n If you are citing one of the keyed texts produced by the Text Creation Partnership (TCP), the following format is recommended:<\/span><\/p>\n Here’s why I think this is a ridiculous way to cite a book viewed on EEBO:<\/p>\n Instead, I suggest and recommend a citation format something like the following:<\/p>\n With a separate entry in your bibliography for EEBO:<\/p>\n And if you’ve used the TCP version, add “-TCP” to the book reference, and include a separate entry for the Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP).<\/p>\n This makes for much shorter entries in your bibliography, and clears away pages of redundant clutter which doesn’t tell the reader anything.<\/p>\n Why cite the source library?<\/strong><\/p>\n Book historians will tell you \u2013 at some length \u2013 that there is no such thing as an edition of a\u00a0hand-printed book. No two books printed by hand are exactly identical (in the way that modern printed books are identical) \u2013 due to misprints and the like, but also because for instance the paper they are printed on will be different from one codex to another (since a printer’s paper stock came from many different paper mills). So two copies of an Early Modern book (the same work, the same ‘edition’) will always differ from each other \u2013 sometimes in significant ways.<\/p>\n For this reason, really we should cite books-as-artefacts rather than books-as-works.\u00a0Happily, EEBO gives the source library of each book, and including that information is straightforward and simple enough.<\/p>\n Problems and questions \u2013 can you\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0cite EEBO?<\/strong><\/p>\n Some of the books on EEBO are available as images digitized from different microfilm surrogates of the source book. That is, there is\u00a0more than one microfilm of the same book. Technically, these surrogate images are different artefacts and we should really reference the\u00a0microfilm<\/em> too\u2026 \u00a0I see that this could be a problem, but have not come across an issue where citing the microfilm would have been relevant to the work I was doing.<\/p>\n Q: Which brings us to another important point: if you are only interested in the\u00a0work<\/em>, is it really necessary to cite the\u00a0format<\/em>, never mind the\u00a0artefact<\/em>?<\/p>\n A: Well, yes, for the reasons outlined above \u2013 and simply because it is good scholarly practice.<\/p>\n Q: What if you only use EEBO to double-check a page reference or the correct quotation of something you’d made a note of when you viewed (a different copy of) the work in a library?<\/p>\n A: Ah. Well, if you are feeling conscientious, maybe make a note that you’ve viewed the work in EEBO as well as a physical copy \u2013 say, use parentheses: “(EEBO. Huntington Library.)”.<\/p>\n Incidentally, since Early Modern books-as-artefacts differ from each other, technically we should always state in the bibliography which copy of the work we have seen. But I’m not sure anyone is quite that diligent \u2013 book historians perhaps excepted \u2013 and I can’t be bothered to check right now.<\/p>\n Q: Argh. Look, can’t we just go back to not quoting the\u00a0work<\/em> and not bother with all this?<\/p>\n A: No. Sorry.<\/p>\n However, I think we’ve drifted a bit far from our departure point.<\/p>\n All this serves to illustrate how citing Early Modern books \u2013 be it as physical copies, printed editions or facsimiles, or digital surrogates \u2013 is no simple matter. (And we haven’t discussed whether good practice should also include giving the ESTC number in order to identify the work\u2026) \u00a0So no wonder no standard practice has emerged on how to cite a work seen on EEBO.<\/p>\n Yet in sum,\u00a0if you consult books on EEBO, I strongly urge you to give credit to EEBO in your bibliography.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ETA 27.2.2014 8am:<\/strong><\/p>\n Another argument for why to make sure to cite EEBO is the rather huge matter of what, exactly,\u00a0is<\/em> EEBO, and how what it is affects scholarship. In the words of others:<\/p>\n Daniel Powell<\/a>\u00a0notes that:<\/p>\n [I]t seems important to realize that EEBO is quite prone to error, loss, and confusion\u2013especially since it\u2019s based on microfilm photographed in the 1930s-40s based on lists compiled in some cases the 1880s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
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