[WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

Fri Dec 22 13:21:49 UTC 2006

jayjg wrote:
> On 12/21/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>>
>>You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
>>not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
>>to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
>>seem very different to me from a citation.
> 
> No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
> is a novel conclusion based on your own original research;

I would disagree, and say that it is a claim made by the library 
catalogue, and thus properly sourced to them.  The claim may be one made 
by omission, but, insofar as the catalogue claims to be comprehensive, 
it is nonetheless an unambiguous claim.

If the catalogue does not claim to be comprehensive, or if there is 
doubt about its accuracy, it may be better to phrase the statement 
explicitly as "his book is not listed in the Cornell University Library 
catalogue."

None of the problems previously mentioned with legal databases apply to 
library catalogues, which I would rather compare to other common 
catalogue works such as phone books and dictionaries.  In fact, ten or 
twenty years ago, one could even have pointed to the filing cabinets 
full of index cards and said "here's your printed source".  :-)

Or would you also consider the statement "IttyBittySoft was not listed 
in the Fortune 500 list for 2006" to be OR?

-- 
Ilmari Karonen