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rfc:rfc1357

Network Working Group D. Cohen Request For Comments: 1357 Editor

                                                                   ISI
                                                             July 1992
            A Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records

Status of this Memo

 This memo provides information for the Internet community.
 It does not specify an Internet standard.  Distribution of
 this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

 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).

INTRODUCTION


 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.

Cohen (ed.) [Page 1] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

 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 INFORMATION FIELDS


 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

Cohen (ed.) [Page 2] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

META FORMAT


  • 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.

Cohen (ed.) [Page 3] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

                              EXAMPLE

———————————————————————– BIB-VERSION:: CS-TR-v2.0

        ID:: OUKS//CS-TR-91-123
     ENTRY:: January 15, 1992

ORGANIZATION:: Oceanview University, Kansas, Computer Science

     TITLE:: The Computerization of Oceanview with High
                 Speed Fiber Optics Communication
      TYPE:: Technical Report
  REVISION:: 2, FTP retrieval information added
    AUTHOR:: Finnegan, James A.
   CONTACT:: Prof. J. A. Finnegan, CS Dept, Oceanview Univ, Oceanview,
                 KS 54321  Tel: 913-456-7890  <Finnegan@cs.ouks.edu>
    AUTHOR:: Pooh, Winnie The
   CONTACT:: 100 Aker Wood
      DATE:: December 1991
     PAGES:: 48
 COPYRIGHT:: Copyright for the report (c) 1991, by J. A. Finnegan.
                 All rights reserved.  Permission is granted for any
                 academic use of the report.
 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

CR-CATEGORY:: D.0 CR-CATEGORY:: C.2.2 Computer Sys Org, Communication nets, Net Protocols

    SERIES:: Communication
   FUNDING:: FAS
  CONTRACT:: FAS-91-C-1234
MONITORING:: FNBO
  LANGUAGE:: English
     NOTES:: This report is the full version of the paper with the
             same title in IEEE Trans ASSP Dec 1976

ABSTRACT::

Many alchemists in the country work on important fusion problems. All of them cooperate and interact with each other through the scientific literature. This scientific communication methodology has many advantages. Timeliness is not one of them.

END:: OUKSCS-TR-91-123 —————————- End of Example ————————— For reference, the above example has about 1,750 characters (220 words) including about 250 characters (40 words) in the abstract. Cohen (ed.) [Page 4] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992 THE ACTUAL FORMAT —————– 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-VERSION (M) – This is the first field of any record. It is a mandatory field. It identifies the version of the format used to create this bibliographic record. 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 ID (M) – This is the second field of any record. It is also a mandatory field. Its format is "ID:: XXXYYY", where XXX is

      the publisher-ID (the controlled symbol of the publisher)
      and YYY is the ID (e.g., report number) of the publication as
      assigned by the publisher.  This ID is typically printed on
      the cover, and may contain slashes.
      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 ***

Cohen (ed.) [Page 5] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

ENTRY (M) – This is a mandatory field. It is the date of creating this

      bibliographic record.
      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

ORGANIZATION (O) – It is the full name spelled out (no acronyms,

      please) of the publishing organization.  The use of this name
      is controlled together with the controlled symbol of the
      publisher (as discussed above for the ID field).
      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

TITLE (O) – This is the title of the work as assigned by the author.

      This field should include the complete title with all the
      subtitles, if any.
      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

TYPE (O) – Indicates the type of publication (summary, final project

      report, etc.) as assigned by the issuing organization.
      Format:   TYPE:: <free-text>
      Example:  TYPE:: Technical Report

Cohen (ed.) [Page 6] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

REVISION (O) – Indicates that the current bibliographic record is

      a revision of a previously issued record and is intended to
      replace it.  Revision information consists of an integer
      followed by a comma, and by text in an open ended format.
      The revised bibliographic record should contain a complete
      record for the publication, not just a list of changes to
      the old record.  The default assumption is that a record is
      not a revision (i.e., specify only if it is), with that integer
      being zero.
      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.

Cohen (ed.) [Page 7] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

AUTHOR (O) – Personal names only. Normal last name first inversion.

      Editors should be listed here as well, identified with the
      usual "(ed.)" as shown below in the last example.
      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.)

CORP-AUTHOR (O) – The corporate author (e.g., a committee or a

      panel) that authored the report, which may be different from
      the ORGANIZATION issuing the report.
      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

CONTACT (O) – The contact for the author(s).

      Open-ended, most likely E-mail and postal addresses.
      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>

Cohen (ed.) [Page 8] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

DATE (O) – The publication date. The formats are "Month Year" and

      "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:   DATE:: <date>
      Example:  DATE:: January 1992
      Example:  DATE:: January 15, 1992

PAGES (O) – Total number of pages, without being too picky about it.

      Final numbered page is actually preferred, if it is a reasonable
      approximation to the total number of pages.
      Format:   PAGES:: <number>
      Example:  PAGES:: 48

COPYRIGHT (O) – Copyright, permissions and disclaimers. Open

      ended format.  The COPYRIGHT field applies to the cited
      report, rather than to the current bibliographic record.
      On advice of counsel it is suggested that you seek the
      advice of yours.
      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.

RETRIEVAL INFORMATION (O) – Open-ended format describing how to get

      a copy of the full text.  It may include anything from FTP
      instructions to a variety of files (e.g., ASCII, TeX, and
      PostScript) to "Send $4.50 to ..." or "Send E-mail to <X@Y>".
      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.

Cohen (ed.) [Page 9] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

      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

CR-CATEGORY (O) – Specify the CR-category. The CR-category (the

      Computer Reviews Category) index (e.g., "B.3") should always be
      included, optionally followed by the name of that category.  If
      the name is specified it should be fully specified with parent
      levels as needed to clarify it, as in the second example below.
      Use multiple lines for multiple categories.
      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

PERIOD (O) – Time period covered (date range). Applicable primarily to

      progress reports, etc.  Any format is acceptable, as long as the
      two dates are separated with " to " (the word "to" surrounded by
      spaces) and each date is in the format allowed for dates, as
      described above for the date field.
      Format:   PERIOD:: <date> to <date>
      Example:  PERIOD:: January 1990 to March 1990

Cohen (ed.) [Page 10] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

SERIES (O) – Series title, including volume number within series.

      Open-ended format, with producing institution strongly
      encouraged to be internally consistent.
      Format:   SERIES:: <free-text>
      Example:  SERIES:: Communication

FUNDING (O) – The name(s) of the funding organization(s).

      Format:   FUNDING:: <free-text>
      Example:  FUNDING:: DARPA

MONITORING (O) – The name(s) of the monitoring organization(s).

      Format:   MONITORING:: <free-text>
      Example:  MONITORING:: ONR

CONTRACT (O) – The contract number(s).

      Format:   CONTRACT:: <free-text>
      Example:  CONTRACT:: MMA-90-23-456

GRANT (O) – The grant number(s).

      Format:   CONTRACT:: <free-text>
      Example:  GRANT:: NASA-91-2345

LANGUAGE (O) – The language in which the report is written.

      Please use the full English name of that language.
      Please include the Abstract in English, if possible.
      If the language is not specified, English is assumed.
      Format:   LANGUAGE:: <free-text>
      Example:  LANGUAGE:: English

Cohen (ed.) [Page 11] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

NOTES (O) – Miscellaneous free text.

      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

ABSTRACT (O) – Highly recommended, but not mandatory. Even though no

      limit is defined for its length, it is suggested not to expect
      applications to be able to handle more than 10,000 characters.
      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

END (M) – This is a mandatory field. It must be the last entry of a

      record, identifying the record that it ends, by stating the same
      ID that was used at the beginning of the records, in its "ID::".
      Format:   END:: XXX
      Example:  END:: OUKS//CS-TR-91-123
           >>>>>>>   [END OF FORMAT DEFINITION]   <<<<<<<

Cohen (ed.) [Page 12] RFC 1357 Format for E-mailing Bibliographic Records July 1992

A Note Regarding the Controlled Symbols of the Publishers

 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 Considerations

 Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

Author's Address

 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

Cohen (ed.) [Page 13]

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