References
Jane McGary (Sat, 15 Nov 2003 13:04:24 PST)

I don't really understand the wiki the way Mary Sue and the other managers
of it do, but now that I know how to post pictures and edit the genus
pages, I guess I could work on a References page too. It would not take as
long as uploading pictures does (I live in the country and have a slow
phone connection). When you figure out what you want done, tell me about it.

If we limit the references to books (no journal articles) the size should
remain manageable. The basic information needed is author(s) with FULL
NAMES, please (not just initials, you scientists), date of publication, and
full title (including subtitle). It also helps to have the publisher's
name, because some books are published by different presses in different
countries (known as copublication; typical example is Timber Press in the
USA and Batsford in the UK) and the ISBN number, which is a quick way to
order a book. All this information can normally be found on the reverse of
the title page.

Mary Sue's concern -- " So I'd suggest author and date as Jane initially
proposed as a possibility and hope that some of the more prolific writers
haven't published a lot in the same year" -- is conventionally addressed by
adding letters to the dates, e.g., 1981a, 1981b.

I think a BRIEF annotation would be helpful with the entries -- no more
than one sentence, and perhaps not even a full sentence. Examples:
"Standard work on the genus." "Color photos of 500 plants." "In Japanese
with English summary and Latin descriptions." "Outdated but interesting."
"Riddled with errors, but useful for color photos."

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA