[Sigia-l] government acronyms format

[Melissa Riesland]

My 2 cents :)

The New Yorker (I believe) prints acronyms with
all the dots. 

Back when I was a full-time editor, we usually
dropped all the dots. I believe that is Chicago
style.

The periods are a pain to type and awkward at the
end of a sentence. For example, "She joined the
F.B.I.." It looks like an elipses.

Anyhow, just be consistent on your "preferred"
style, then load up your metadata with all
reasonably possible variations! On the web,
there's no one way.

M.

--- Franciel Azpurua <fazpurua at infointl.com>
wrote:
> All,
> 
> I work for the Southern Appalachian Information
> Node (SAIN, @
> sain.nbii.gov), one of the National Biological
> Information
> Infrastructure (NBII, see www.nbii.gov) nodes,
> most of the 'nodes' are
> gateways to regional biological (biodiversity,
> ecology, etc)
> information. As part of our work we also create
> metadata records for
> many data sets and web sites that are produced
> by government
> agencies.----Sorry for the long story but I
> promise I am going somewhere
> with this. 
> 
> We are trying to develop a common vocabulary
> for the nodes and one of
> the issues is the common representation of
> government acronyms within
> the record (for example, if the creator of a
> web site is the USGS, how
> do we represent the acronym? U.S.G.S? USGS? US
> Geological Survey?). 
> 
> Do any of you know about an official (or de
> facto) standard list for the
> representation of government acronyms?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Franciel Azpurua-Linares
> Knowledge Manager / IA
> Southern Appalachian Information Node
> (SAIN)-NBII
> 122 S. Jefferson Cir., Oak Ridge TN 37830
> Phone (865) 481-0388 .x 116 & Fax (865)
> 481-0390
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------
> When replying, please TRIM YOUR POST as much as
> possible.
> 
> PLAIN TEXT, please; NO Attachments
> 
> ASIST SIG IA:
> Http://www.asis.org/SIG/SIGIA/index.html
> _______________________________________________
> Sigia-l mailing list
> Sigia-l at asis.org
> http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l


=====
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

"One quarter of those under age 25 polled in a recent British survey said they had kicked their computers or seen friends do so."

-- from "Autonomic Computing"
   by W. Wayt Gibbs
   Scientific American

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com