[Air-l] citing evanescent material

[Barry Wellman]

Here's a belated response (I was at a conference) to the debate over
referencing URLs which may disappear.

It strikes me that we face the same thing in the print world, especially
for conference papers, reports, less-famous newspapers, and short-lived
journals. Even books may disappear (national libraries are not all
comprehensive, and not all countries have one.)

Nevertheless, we cite them and hope the reader can find them.

Altho the probability of URLs disappearing is higher in some fields -- but
probably not all -- I think the same rules apply,

Give your best effort to provide the reader with a guide to where to find
it.
And for Internet stuff, the date accessed (or should it be the date posted
to the Web, if avaiable?)
A problem rarely faced in the print world, except for the Great Soviet
Encylopedia.

 Barry
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  Barry Wellman        Professor of Sociology       NetLab Director
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman

  Centre for Urban & Community Studies        University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue   Toronto Canada M5S 2G8   fax:+1-416-978-7162
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