Talk:Bibliography of Montana history

Re organization of this bibliography

In practice bibliographies on with a broad historical scope in years such as this one are best organized by topic, then chronologically. The reason being is that when using such a bibliography, one first finds the suitable subtopic and then can scan entries from the oldest to the most contemporary. Looking for a specific author is not really useful as one is using to the Bibliography to find either old or new sources on a specific topic. This one still needs some adjusting to get all the citation in {{cite book}} format which makes chronological simple, but the topic, chronological organization is a better approach.--Mike Cline (talk) 23:39, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I beg to differ. I realize there are multiple approaches, but chronological arrangement is virtually useless in a list like this. A standard bibliography in the Chicago Manual of Style, used in the humanities (and in most modern history books) is arranged alphabetically by author, and then chronologically by their works. Just for one example, the Toole books I just added were over 20 years apart, it's ridiculous to put the same person's works in two different places. I won't argue that SOMETIMES things are arranged chronologically, but it isn't the best way to do it. Especially in wikipedia where our goal is to present organized information. Montanabw^(talk) 23:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

And, I'm OK with the topics, though brace for edit wars over how many categories to have and what to call them (I already took issue with calling L&C a "military" expedition when it was only nominally military and almost no one was killed!) Montanabw^(talk) 23:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

No heartburn here, but your interpretation conflicts with the Lewis and Clark Expedition article which states: In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery as a scientific and military expedition to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. No one gets killed in a lot of military endeavors, that doesn't make them less military. Having an L&C section is fine because the number of works will be significant enough to warrant it. I am not an expert on L&C but seriously believe it was a military expedition.--Mike Cline (talk) 00:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Operative term is "scientific." Virtually all of the great exploration missions were military-affiliated, and sometimes people got killed. But that doesn't make them a military operation in the armed conflict sense (though I suppose there is room for debate there, too). How about this: Break out Lewis and Clark, as well as some of the other exploration stuff, into a separate section called "Exploration" rather than lumping it under "Military". I won't make the change unless we have consensus, but I really find it awkward to lump L&C in with the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Montanabw^(talk) 21:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions for Reorganization

I'm looking to add some items to this bib but I wanted to suggest a reorganization first. Currently, we have very little order to the topics. I suggest we adapt the topical headings found in the "Recent Articles" section of the Western Historical Quarterly. I've used these over the years in my own bib creation and they've been very helpful for me in organizing references to both books and articles. I think starting with the Survey section is good (though I'd like to change the title to "General Montana history," since I'm not sure the novice historian or student knows what survey means). Then starting the topical sections in alphabetical order with "Agriculture, Ranching, and Rural Life," "Biography," "Business and Economics," etc., etc. There are a few I'd leave out since they don't exactly fit Montana or the history of a state, such as: "International Borderlands," "Method and Theory," and "Public History and Material Culture." I would also suggest folding "Literature, Film, and the Arts" and "Science, Technology, and Industry" into other, broader categories. I don't mind making the changes, and I think just adding one topic at a time, shifting titles that need to shift and adding a few new titles from some of my own working bibs would be the way to go. Some issues may come up as the change is implemented and we can discuss those as they appear. Anyway, I wanted to see what anyone else out there thought of this. Any concerns, suggestions, or comments? --KingJeff1970 (talk) 22:45, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions: Let's KEEP all those neat categories like "Borderlands" (that's where Montana is); and keep Public History, Literature etc, we need Historiography & Memory (it includes "Method & Theory"). I think it's odd that WHQ groups together science, technology & industry. (Industry goes with Economics & Business; in Montana as Mike points out, Science goes with Exploration). We need Military. (A I dislike chronological bibliographies. Rjensen (talk) 23:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd be open to pitching the thing wholesale and starting fresh. The problem with past editors is that they seem to have not looked much at more recent topics and there is a distinct lack of diversity in the list, very white male-oriented stuff, a bit too right-wing and much of it pre-1970. WHQ is a respected third-party source that is preferable to the random WP:SYNTH that has been put in here in a hit-or-miss fashion. Montanabw^(talk) 04:27, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions! Rjensen, I'll work on including the categories you mention. The difficulty I see is that some of those will have very limited titles to chose from, but I'll mine everything I can get within reason. I like putting Industry with Business and Economics, and I thought maybe Science and Technology could go with Environment and Natural Resources, which is particularly fitting for the 20th century and it gives mining a solid home. No categorization is going to be perfect so I'll use the WHQ, make some adjustments, and see how it turns out. We can always refine it in the future. Montanabw, I'll definitely take balance as a guiding principle here, and I'll include more women's history and Native Americans; there's a bounty of sources out there. --KingJeff1970 (talk) 16:16, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

good. I cited a lot of articles on the main history page & the cites can be added here  :) Rjensen (talk) 16:23, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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