Back to: Where the Information Resides
There are basically three ways information is disseminated:

1. as a complete, single item
2. as something that continues
3. single items that are updated

For single items, the best known are books; for continuations, the best known are journals; and updated items are loose-leaf publications.

Book

Journal

Note that for the journal, it is not enough to just ask for "Life magazine," but you must include a specific issue such as May 19, 1937, or vol. 22, issue 4. On the web, there are new types of materials that we will discuss later.

To help you find materials, there are tools called bibliographies and indexes.

• A bibliography is a list of works by a specific author or on a given subject
  
• An index is a list of the names and subjects treated in a work, with page numbers (or now hyperlinks) to refer the reader to the point in the text at which information resides.
  

We'll see examples of these materials below.

There are two types of bibliographies and indexes:

• the bibliography or index can refer to a single item, or
• entire items can be a bibliographies or indexes.

Here, the entire book is a bibliography. A selective bibliography refers you to other resources that the authors find especially useful, or a comprehensive bibliography will attempt to have everything.

Excerpt

One issue of this journal is an index of the articles within specific issues of this journal. For example, an article by Thomas S. Abel, who is a bank officer, can be found on page 241 of volume 27.

Excerpt

This entire journal is an index.

Bibliographies and indexes can be inside publications as well.

With web resources, there is still not anything really new, with a few exceptions. The indexes have mostly changed into search bars. There are other parts called site maps, which are similar to a table of contents. As an example, see the site map for Google.

Single Item (book)

Journal (individual issue)
Here, we would have to look further to find the number of the individual issue.

Powerpoint (Single Item)

Webcast/Movie (Single item)

When it comes to a Wiki, things are a little different (Single item? Journal?)

Resources such as wikis change constantly and are updated at irregular intervals. The earlier version you looked at this morning may be gone this afternoon, and because of this, it becomes very difficult to cite anything from it.

It may be interesting that the problems presented by wikis are not all that new, and are similar to loose-leaf publications, which have been used for publications that need to be kept up-to date, such as laws or building codes. (The way it works is: a new update with pages arrives with instructions that tell you to replace page 3 of section 8 with a new page 3, or replace all of section 4 with an updated section 4) To be honest, it has always been difficult to cite material from a loose-leaf publication, too!

In a wiki, you can normally view the "History," i.e. the earlier versions of a particular page. The page you are reading now is part of a wiki, and if you scroll to the bottom, you can see the history of the changes of this page.

With a loose-leaf publication, the older materials are kept in a binder or box, normally called a transfer binder or transfer box.Here is an example adapted from the Library of Congress:

Main Title: Connecticut tax reporter / by CCH tax law editors. Published/Created: Chicago, Ill. : Commerce Clearing House, c1992- Description: 4 v. (loose-leaf) : forms ; 26 cm. Notes: Running title: Connecticut tax reports. State tax reporter, Connecticut. Accompanied by bound, unnumbered Transfer binder.

In the transfer binder, you could easily have 3 or 4 earlier versions of section 8, page 3. You can imagine that if you wanted to cite specific information in the transfer binder that would not be so simple, either!

We'll discuss all of this in more detail later.

Continue with: A Short History of the Internet: A Digression