About

Revision as of 19:36, 13 June 2016 by Wiki-admin (Talk | contribs) (License)

What this guide is for

This guide was created to provide assistance with citation for business sources. It also contains general guidance on using the APA citation style.

What this guide is not for

  • This guide is not focused on common types of sources that are covered well by other APA guides (e.g., books, most journal articles, or basic websites).
  • It also isn't intended as a place where you can ask citation questions. Please contact your local library if none of the resources listed in this guide come close to the specific resource and issue you are dealing with.

Who is responsible

This APA Guide is a result of a collaborative effort of many BC College and University Librarians.

Librarians contributing to this wiki represent the following institutions:

History

Fall 2014: Idea

The idea for this guide first came up during a meeting of the Business Librarians of BC (BUSLIB-BC) group around 2014. We were sharing news about recent initiatives and efforts at our institutions when a theme became obvious: many of us had just created or updated guides to using APA with business resources!

There was a brief pause in the meeting, then the discussion switched over to how incredibly inefficient it was for us all to be making such similar guides. We decided to look into how (and who... and when) to create a joint guide -- one that would have a BC focus (BC librarians building it, BC examples used where possible) and that would provide consistent, current, and quality citation examples for all BC researchers. Ideally (because what good is a dream without ideals at the core?), the guide would also serve as

Spring 2015: Proposal drafted

Sarah Parker (then at SFU) and Anita Chan (then at Capilano University) started off our collaborative project in the best possible way -- by collaborating on a proposal. They investigated possible platforms, recommended procedures for creating and maintaining the guide, and worked out a process for sharing responsibility in a way that would spread the joy and the work without overwhelming anyone.

Summer 2015: Proposal accepted

The BUSLIB-BC team met and approved the draft proposal, then formed a working group to take it to the next stage. That group had a few business librarians (Linda Matsuba and Deirdre Grace of BCIT, plus Mark Bodnar of SFU), as well as an APA/citation expert (Ulrike Kestler of Kwantlen Polytechnic University). Brandon Weigel of the BC Electronic Library Network (ELN) was also available to the group for assistance as required.

Fall 2015: First attempt

Sarah Parker (SFU) built the initial wiki (a huge task that involved much investigation and experimentation with possible extensions) on the ELN servers with assistance from ELN folks and documented key procedures. ELN was chosen as a neutral site, in part because that meant that the wiki wouldn't appear to be "owned by" (and the sole responsibility of) any single institution.

Spring 2016: Rebuilding and extending

Sadly, the wiki framework had to be rebuilt, and many of the initial extensions had to be replaced due to some security issues, but the working group got all that done in Spring 2016. The intention at this point is to finish adding content over the summer and have a finished tool ready to launch by Fall 2016.

License

This guide was created in a spirit of sharing and mutual support, so its success will only be enhanced if it is shared further.

This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</a>.