Greetings all,
Following on from Gregor's message, it appears that there is some consensus from those who have contributed, that the Level 1 standard should be a recommendation for the format of a microcitation, as commonly used in biological taxonomic works, most often in synonymies. It will be used in a variety of ways, but it is, in a sense, being created in order to maintain some human-readable version of an GUID for citations of published material. This is important, as Gregor points out "technically it would be sufficient to simple store a uri. However, considering we want to express scientific data, I believe it would be wise to store a uri plus a single string representation. If the uri breaks (say in 50 years), we still have the scientific data".
Basically, we are, in a sense, codifying 200+ years of tradition into a recommendation. There is little in the Codes of Botanical or Zoological nomenclature to help us since the Codes are about names (especially about their 'availability' (zoo) or 'valid publication' (bot) rather than about where in the literature they were used. Nevertheless, we have cited at the bottom of this message, some relevant recommendations, which, while not directly aimed at citations in synonymy, are nonetheless relevant.
It should also be noted that authors and titles are usually be abbreviated. Botany has standardized lists, which have been adopted nearly universally, for both of these, and the group may want to recommend following those lists. Zoology does not have a single list, and in most cases the lists that are used are more informal than formal. Should we recommend that TDWG work on compiling and merging those lists and proposing those as a separate standard?
We make the following recommendation for the "Level 1 standard" based on that tradition along with some examples. We are not proposing the following list as named elements within the microcitation string, only the recommended components, with an initial thought as to whether each is required or optional, and their recommended order.
Level 1 (Microcitation) standard recommendation
Author(s) of citation (required; this could be the author(s) of a new taxon or new combination, or just that portion of the work being cited) Author(s) of work (optional; the author(s) of a book, chapter, or article, if different from citation author(s)) Title of work (required; the title of the book, book series, journal, etc.) volume indicator (optional, though required if applicable) part or issue number indicator (optional; though required if applicable) page(s) (required) image indicator (optional)
Note 1: Article and/or chapter title have been omitted as they are rarely, if ever, used in microcitations; they will be included, along with many other things in level 2.
Note 2: We should perhaps include some recommendation about a reference to the permanent archive for an electronic publication. How such a permanent archive is set up and probably how to cite is one of the major issues for those discussing long-term electronic data curation issues, but at least we should make reference to that ultimate goal and add an appropriate recommendation when there are community standards.
Note 3: Should an LSID for the microcitation be added? Should there be an LSID that links to the level 2 standard reference with metadata that probably exists at the level of article, chapter, volume in a book series, a single book, etc.?
Cheers, Anna & Chris
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Zoological Code:
Recommendation 22A.2.3. if wishing to cite both the actual and the imprint dates, should first cite the actual date (...), followed by the imprint date for information and enclosed in parentheses or other brackets and quotation marks....
Recommendation 51B. Transliteration of author's name. When the author's name is customarily written in a language that does not use the Latin alphabet it should be given in Latin letters with or without diacritic marks.
Recommendation 51E. Citation of contributors. If a scientific name and the conditions other than publication that make it available [...] are the responsibility not of the author of the work containing them, but of some other person(s), or less than all of joint authors, the authorship of the name, if cited, should be stated as "B in A", or "B in A & B", or in whatever form is appropriate to facilitate information retrieval....
Botanical Code:
Article 46.2. A name of a new taxon must be attributed to the author or authors to whom both the name and the validating description or diagnosis were ascribed, even when authorship of the publication is different.... Note 1. When authorship of a name differs from the authorship of the publication in which it was validly published both are sometimes cited, connected by the word "in". In such a case, "in" and what follows are part of a bibliographic citation and are better omitted unless the place of publication is also being cited.
Article 46.4. A name of a new taxon must be attributed to the author or authors of the publication in which it appears only when the name but not the validating description or diagnosis was ascribed to a different author or different authors.... However, ... authorship as ascribed, followed by "ex", may be inserted before the name(s) of the publishing author(s).
Recommendation 46A.1. For purposes of author citation, prefixes indicating ennoblement (...) should be suppressed unless they are an inseparable part of the name.
Recommendation 46A.2. When a name in an author citation is abbreviated, the abbreviation should be long enough to be distinctive, and should normally end with a consonant that, if the full name, precedes a vowel. The first letters should be given without any omission, but one of the last characteristic consonants may be added when this is customary.
Recommendation 46A.3. Given names or accessory designations serving to distinguish two botanists of the same name should be abridged in the same way.
Recommendation 46A.4. When it is a well-established custom to abridge a name in another manner, it is advisable to conform to custom. Note 1. Brummit & Powell's Authors of plant names (1992) provides unambiguous standard abbreviations, in conformity with the present Recommendation....
Recommendation 46B.1. In citing the author of the scientific name of a taxon, the romanization of the author's name given in the original publication should normally be accepted. Where an author failed to give a romanization, or where the author has at different times used different romanizations, then the romanization known to be preferred by the author or that most frequently adopted by the author should be accepted. In the absence of such information the author's name should be romanized in accordance with an internationally available standard.