Network Working Group D. Cohen Request For Comments: 1357 Editor ISI July 1992
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
This memo defines a format for E-mailing bibliographic records of technical reports. It is intended to accelerate the dissemination of information about new Computer Science Technical Reports (CS-TR).
Many Computer Science R&D organizations routinely announce new technical reports by mailing (via the postal services) the bibliographic records of these reports.
These mailings have non-trivial cost and delay. In addition, their recipients cannot conveniently file them, electronically, for later retrieval and searches.
Therefore, it is suggested that the publishing organizations would e-mail these announcements by using the following format.
Organizations may automate to any degree (or not at all) both the creation of these records (about their own publications) and the handling of the records received from other organizations.
This format is designed to be simple, for people and for machines, to be easy to read ("human readable") and create without any special programs, and to be compatible with E-mail.
This format defines how bibliographic records are to be transmitted. It does not define what to do with them when received.
This format is a "tagged" format with self-explaining alphabetic tags. It should be possible to prepare and to read bibliographic records using any text editor, without any special programs.
This format was developed with considerable help and involvement of Computer Science and Library personnel from several organizations, including CMU, CNRI, Cornell, ISI, Meridian, MIT, Stanford, and UC. Key contributions were provided by Jerry Saltzer of MIT, and Larry Lannom of Meridian. The initial draft was prepared by Danny Cohen and Larry Miller of ISI.
The use of this format is encouraged. There are no limitations on its use.
The various fields should follow the format described below.
<M> means Mandatory; a record without it is invalid. <O> means Optional.
The tags (aka Field-IDs) are shown in upper case.
<M> BIB-VERSION of this bibliographic records format <M> ID <M> ENTRY date <O> ORGANIZATION <O> TITLE <O> TYPE <O> REVISION <O> AUTHOR <O> CORP-AUTHOR <O> CONTACT for the author(s) <O> DATE of publication <O> PAGES count <O> COPYRIGHT, permissions and disclaimers <O> RETRIEVAL information <O> CR-CATEGORY <O> PERIOD <O> SERIES <O> FUNDING organization(s) <O> MONITORING organization(s) <O> CONTRACT number(s) <O> GRANT number(s) <O> LANGUAGE name <O> NOTES <O> ABSTRACT <M> END
* Keep It Simple. * One bibliographic record for each publication, where a "publication" is whatever the publishing institution defines as such. * A record contains several fields. * Each field starts with its tag (aka the field-ID) which is a reserved identifier (containing no separators) at the beginning of a new line with or without spaces before it), followed by two colons ("::"), followed by the field data. * Continuation lines: Lines are limited to 79 characters. When needed, fields may continue over several lines, with an implied space in between. In order to simplify the use no special marking is used to indicate continuation line. Hence, fields are terminated by a line that starts (apart from white space) with a word followed by two colons. Except for the "END::" that is terminated by the end of line.) For improved human readability it is suggested to start continuation lines with some spaces. * Several fields are mandatory and must appear in the record. All fields (unless specifically not permitted to) may be in any order and may be repeated as needed (e.g., the AUTHOR field). The order of the repeated fields is always preserved. * Only printable ASCII characters may be used. Hence, the permissible characters are ASCII codes 040 (Space) through 176(~) and line breaks which are \012 (LF) or \012\015 (CRLF). Empty lines indicate paragraph break. \009 (tab) must be replaced by spaces before submission. This specifically forbids tabs, null characters, DEL, backspaces, etc. (i.e., if used, the record is invalid.)
Throughout this document the word "publisher" means the publishing organization of a report (e.g., a university or a department thereof), not necessarily an organization authorized to issue ISBN numbers.
EXAMPLE
For reference, the above example has about 1,750 characters (220 words) including about 250 characters (40 words) in the abstract.
In the following double-quotes indicate complete strings. They are included only for grouping and are not expected to be used in the actual records.
The term "Open Ended Format" in the following means arbitrary text.
The BIB-VERSION, ID, ENTRY, and END field must appear as the first, second, third, and last fields, and may not be repeated in the record. All other fields may be repeated as needed.
BIB-VERSIONs that start with the letter X (case independent) are considered experimental. Bib-records sent with such a BIB-VERSION should NOT be incorporated in the permanent database of the recipient.
Using this version of this format, this field is always:
Format: BIB-VERSION:: CS-TR-v2.0
The organization symbols "DUMMY" and "TEST" (case independent)
and any organization symbol starting with <X> (case
independent) are reserved for test records that should NOT
be incorporated in the permanent database of the recipients.
Format: ID:: <publisher-ID>//<free-text>
Example: ID:: OUKS//CS-TR-91-123
**** See the note at the end regarding the **** **** controlled symbols of the publishers *****
The format for ENTRY date is "Month Day, Year". The month must
be alphabetic (spelled out). The "Day" is a 1- or 2-digit number. The "Year" is a 4-digit number. Format: ENTRY:: <date>
Example: ENTRY:: January 15, 1992
Avoid acronyms because there are many common acronyms, such as ISI and USC. Please provide it in ascending order, such as "X University, Y Department" (not "Y Department, X University").
Format: ORGANIZATION:: <free-text>
Example: ORGANIZATION:: Stanford University, Computer Science
If the publication has no title (e.g., in withdrawal), a blank TITLE field should be included.
Format: TITLE:: <free-text>
Example: TITLE:: The Computerization of Oceanview with High Speed Fiber Optics Communication
Format: TYPE:: <free-text>
Example: TYPE:: Technical Report
The first token in this field is an integer revision number. Higher numbers indicate later revisions. Use the text to describe the revision. Reasons to send out a revised record include an error in the original, change in the retrieval information, or withdrawal (see below).
Format: REVISION:: N, <free-text>
Example: REVISION:: 2, FTP retrieval information added
WITHDRAWING: A withdrawal of a record is a special case of revising it. Hence, the standard way to withdraw records is by sending a revision record with (at least) all the mandatory fields, and an optional explanation in the NOTES field.
It is OK on withdrawal to eliminate the title, by not providing the TITLE field it or by providing it with no text (blank).
Example for withdrawing a bibliographic record::
BIB-VERSION:: CS-TR-v2.0
ID:: OUKS//CS-TR-91-123 ENTRY:: January 25, 1992 ORGANIZATION:: Oceanview University, Kansas, Computer Science TITLE:: REVISION:: 4, withdrawn NOTES:: Withdrawn, found to be irrelevant END:: OUKS//CS-TR-91-123
This new record will replace all the fields of the previous record for that publication. In this example it will eliminate the title, the retrieval information provided earlier, and not mention the authors.
If the report was not authored by a person (e.g., it was authored by a committee or a panel) use CORP-AUTHOR (see below) instead of AUTHOR.
Multiple authors are entered by using multiple lines, each in the form of "AUTHOR:: <free-text>".
The system preserves the order of the authors.
Format: AUTHOR:: <free-text>
Example: AUTHOR:: Finnegan, James A.
AUTHOR:: Pooh, Winnie The
AUTHOR:: Lastname, Firstname (ed.)
In entering the corporate name please omit initial "the" or "a". If it is really part of the name, please invert it.
Format: CORP-AUTHOR:: <free-text>
Example: CORP-AUTHOR:: Committee on long-range computing
You may provide a CONTACT field for each author separately, or for all the AUTHOR fields.
E-mail addresses should always be in "pointy brackets" (as in the example below).
Format: CONTACT:: <free-text>
Example: CONTACT:: Prof. J. A. Finnegan, CS Dept, Oceanview
Univ., Oceanview, Kansas, 54321
Tel: 913-456-7890 <Finnegan@cs.ouks.edu>
Format: DATE:: <date>
Example: DATE:: January 1992
Example: DATE:: January 15, 1992
Format: PAGES:: <number>
Example: PAGES:: 48
Format: COPYRIGHT:: <free-text>
Example: COPYRIGHT:: Copyright for the report (c) 1991, by J. A. Finnegan. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for any academic use of the report.
It is suggested to repeat this field for each retrieval option (e.g., one line for the FTP instructions to the ASCII version, and another for the PostScript version). When offering files like TeX all the related files (e.g., "\input mystyle") should be included. Please provide file sizes (in characters).
Means are not defined yet for providing the information needed for automatic retrieval of files (such as via FTP). They are expected to be defined in the near future.
No limitations are placed on the dissemination of the bibliographic records. If there are limitations on the dissemination of the publication, it should be protected by some means such as passwords. This format does not address this protection.
Format: RETRIEVAL:: <free-text>
Example: RETRIEVAL:: For full text with color pictures send
a self-addressed stamped envelope to
Prof. J. A. Finnegan, CS Dept,
Oceanview University, Oceanview, KS 54321.
RETRIEVAL:: ASCII available via FTP from
JUPITER.CS.OUKS.EDU with the pathname
PUBS/computerization.txt.
Login with FTP, username ANONYMOUS and
password GUEST.
File size: 123,456 characters
The January 1992 issue of CR has the full list of these categories, with a detailed discussion of the CR Classification System, and a full index. Typically the full index appears in every January issue, and the top two levels in every issue.
Format: CR-CATEGORY:: <free-text>
Example: CR-CATEGORY:: D.1
Example: CR-CATEGORY:: B.3 Hardware, Memory Structures
Format: PERIOD:: <date> to <date>
Example: PERIOD:: January 1990 to March 1990
Format: SERIES:: <free-text>
Example: SERIES:: Communication
Format: FUNDING:: <free-text>
Example: FUNDING:: DARPA
Format: MONITORING:: <free-text>
Example: MONITORING:: ONR
Format: CONTRACT:: <free-text>
Example: CONTRACT:: MMA-90-23-456
Format: CONTRACT:: <free-text>
Example: GRANT:: NASA-91-2345
Please include the Abstract in English, if possible.
If the language is not specified, English is assumed.
Format: LANGUAGE:: <free-text>
Example: LANGUAGE:: English
Format: NOTES:: <free-text>
Example: NOTES:: This report is the full version of the paper with the same title in IEEE Trans ASSP Dec 1976
The ABSTRACT is expected to be used for subject searching since titles are not enough. Even if the report is not in English, an English ABSTRACT is preferable. If no formal abstract appears on document, the producers of the bibliographic records are encouraged to use pieces of the introduction, first paragraph, etc.
Format: ABSTRACT:: xxxx .............. xxxxxxxx
xxxx .............. xxxxxxxx
xxxx .............. xxxxxxxx
xxxx .............. xxxxxxxx
Format: END:: XXX
Example: END:: OUKS//CS-TR-91-123
>>>>>>> [END OF FORMAT DEFINITION] <<<<<<<
In order to avoid conflicts among the symbols of the publishing organizations (the XXX part of the "ID:: XXX//YYY") it is suggested that the various organizations that publish reports (such as universities, departments, and laboratories) register their
<publisher-ID> symbols and names, in a way similar to the registration of other key parameters and names in the Internet.
Danny Cohen <Cohen@ISI.EDU> of ISI, has agreed to coordinate this registration for the publishers of Computer Science technical reports. It is suggested that before using this format the publishing organizations would coordinate with him (by e-mail) their symbols and the names of their organizations. [Discussions are in progress to have these publisher-IDs registered with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and listed in future editions of the Assigned Numbers document.]
In order to help automated handling of the received bibliographic records, it is expected that the producers of bibliographic records will always use the same name, exactly, in the ORGANIZATION field.
Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
Danny Cohen
USC - Information Sciences Institute
4676 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695
Phone: 310-822-1511
Fax: 310-823-6714
EMail: Cohen@ISI.EDU