Well, I guess we would have to deal with this sooner or later.
The style guide of the American Psychological Association (APA) has an article about how to cite Twitter and Facebook posts in scholarly (and student) papers!
I thought it was bad enough that I had to monitor students using Wikipedia in their footnotes, but now it looks like I may have to add yet another line to my course syllabi. Something like this: “Facebook and Twitter will not be accepted as credible secondary sources in this history course.”
When the Chicago Manual of Style includes a section on citing social networking sites I may take this more seriously.
Thanks to Janet Vogel, librarian extraordinaire, for indirectly bringing this to my attention through, of all things, a Facebook post.
I understand the reluctance for undergraduate history courses… but in my dissertation I will need to cite Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter extensively. It's VERY important for my work, and the laziness of the MLA and CMS in getting a handle of these items and the complexity of web sources is just another strike against both these standards.
Fated: Thanks for the comment. I thought about this as I wrote the original post. I would imagine that these networking sites might prove to be valuable primary sources for people in the social sciences. I just don't want my students using them as secondary sources.
I thought this was pretty fascinating, since I did write a research paper about Facebook & libraries (before everyone was doing it) for my MS in Library & Information Science. As I was writing the paper, I thought about how different the two disciplines (history & library science) can be. Of course, in 20 years, someone will probably be writing some sort of historical analysis of Facebook. Maybe then the Chicago Manual will show us how to cite Facebook. Of course, I think the issue of permanence is a big problem. How long will all this stuff last? What happens if servers crash? What if Facebook decides to deny access? It's not the same as someone's letters stored in an archive somewhere. I'm very curious to see what comes of this, since I'm sure there are plenty of people who “store” everything on Facebook (photos, links, etc.) assuming it will be there for as long as they want it there.
Janet: Great point about the permanency of Facebook and other social networking sites.
I sometimes think the same thing about this blog. I have put thoughts on this site that I have not put in more permanent places. I think I may have a student go back and copy and paste some of my posts into a WORD document so at least I have a record of them.
Anyway, thanks for calling my attention to this interesting article.