[Sca-cooks] Documentation question

[Terry Decker]

I reference websites regularly.  There are several bibliographic forms for
doing so and they are used in academic papers.  The key to using anything as
a reference is to have some idea of the accuracy of the "facts" presented
and their historical context.

The example I often use to point out flaws in using websites is when I was
researching coffee I found a number of websites had copied a common source
and place coffee in Vienna in 1529.  The actual date is 1683.  The author of
the piece had taken the facts surrounding the arrival of coffee during the
second Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 and transposed them to the first
Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529.  Hattox and Ukers, the two best sources for
information about the history of coffee give the correct dates.

Bear



>So, how does one feel about using internet sites as sources?  I realize
that
>some sites may be very suspect, but others may seem more respectable.  On
>could say the same about some books. (thinking about how our views on
>costume "history" has changed since the 1900s...)
>
>Is it appropriate to use websites as references for "know facts" (let's
say,
>when packaged yeast was first used), or does one need to find it in a book?
>
>Thanks for the input.
>
>Vitha