August 23, 2009

Easily Record Source Information on Copies

When you make a photocopy of a page from a pertinent book at a library or archive, make a note of the publication information for your source citation.

Include:
-- Author's name(s)
-- Title
-- City and state (and country if foreign) of publication
-- Name of publisher
-- Year of publication
-- Other appropriate information (volume number, edition, etc.)
-- Repository where you located the material
-- The date you accessed the material
-- When you return home, you can type this information in your word processor in a bibliographic citation format. Feed the photocopies through your printer so that the citation will be neatly printed on the back of the photocopies you made from that source.

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SSDI Blues

I did something today that I've been dreading. I finally got the courage to search for my mother's name in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI). And yes, she's in there, although she passed away only about ten weeks ago.

It still doesn't truly register. I thought it would be a few more decades before Mom would appear in this resource that I use on a daily basis without any thought--without any thought of what it really means. Each one of those millions of entries meant the world to someone...

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