Referencing books, was: Disparaged Y class engines!

[NW Mailing List]

The discussion about the Y (and any other steam, for that matter) is 
fascinating to me, but I have to take issue with something which was said:

> I suspect that the best response on the thread would have been to 

> reference Bud Jeffries' book, N&W Giant of Steam and Ed King's book on 

> the A.


While that book may be the best source of information, using it as a 
reference is only useful if

 1. Everyone involved in the discussion has the book, or
 2. Everyone involved is expected to go out and buy it.

Since neither one of those are true, especially considering that the 
discussion involved fans of lines other than the N&W, using it as a 
reference is a less than stellar idea.

I see this a lot, on various forums.  Someone asks a question, and 
instead of getting the answer, they're told that they need to go out and 
buy some esoteric and expensive book.  For example, I asked about a 
couple details of a very old C&O locomotive because one of them wound up 
on my favorite short line.  Instead of getting an answer, several people 
told me that I needed to go out and spend a couple hundred dollars 
buying up long out of print tomes on C&O steam, all so I could get a 
couple paragraphs and grainy photos of the engines in question.  I'm 
sorry, but that's neither practical nor helpful.  Thankfully, someone 
was kind enough to actually look at their copy of one of the books 
mentioned and give a very simple, brief answer to my questions.

While I understand the need to respect copyrights, I think we as amateur 
historians need to do a better job of sharing information rather than 
expecting others to invest as heavily (in both time and money) as we 
have in our pet subjects.  To that end, I always try to answer any 
questions about Southern Ry. steam (my field of expertise) even when I 
could simply point people to the various sources and let them do their 
own research.  When someone shows more than a passing interest, THEN I 
suggest they look at the reference works for themselves.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.  Back to talking about why the Y was 
better than a Big Boy, H-8, or anything else out there.  :)
Ken Rickman

On 6/27/2013 8:21 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:

> I suspect that the best response on the thread would have been to 

> reference Bud Jeffries' book, N&W Giant of Steam and Ed King's book on 

> the A.


-- 
Kenneth Rickman
Salisbury, NC
"When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer 'present' or 'not guilty.'" - Teddy Roosevelt

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