About

How to Cite the Library

America's School Trust Library is cited in court filings, in legislative testimony, in scholarship, and in journalism. We want to be cited. We ask only that the citation be accurate, so a reader who follows it lands on the same page we did and can verify the underlying source for themselves. This page explains how.

General form

The Library is the publisher. The page you are citing — a Reading Room essay, a state catalog page, a Counting House figure page — is the work. Where the page lists a named author, that author goes first. The URL is the locator. A reader needs the date you visited the page, because the Library is a living catalog and pages do get revised.

The general form, modeled on standard digital-library practice:

Author Last, First. "Page Title." America's School Trust Library, accessed YYYY-MM-DD, https://schooltrusts.net/path/.

Two worked examples:

Sullivan, Dave. "The Eighth Anchor." America's School Trust Library, accessed 2026-05-12, https://schooltrusts.net/reading/the-eighth-anchor/.

"Oregon." America's School Trust Library, accessed 2026-05-12, https://schooltrusts.net/states/oregon/.

The second example has no author line because state catalog pages are institutional work — there is no individual byline on the page, so the citation begins with the page title.

In specific styles

The form above is close to several common styles already. Here is the same Reading Room essay rendered four ways.

MLA

Sullivan, Dave. "The Eighth Anchor." America's School Trust Library, 2026, schooltrusts.net/reading/the-eighth-anchor/. Accessed 12 May 2026.

Chicago — notes and bibliography

Note: Dave Sullivan, "The Eighth Anchor," America's School Trust Library, accessed May 12, 2026, https://schooltrusts.net/reading/the-eighth-anchor/.

Bibliography: Sullivan, Dave. "The Eighth Anchor." America's School Trust Library. Accessed May 12, 2026. https://schooltrusts.net/reading/the-eighth-anchor/.

Chicago — author-date

Sullivan, Dave. 2026. "The Eighth Anchor." America's School Trust Library. Accessed May 12, 2026. https://schooltrusts.net/reading/the-eighth-anchor/.

Bluebook (for legal writing)

Dave Sullivan, The Eighth Anchor, AMERICA'S SCHOOL TRUST LIBRARY (May 12, 2026), https://schooltrusts.net/reading/the-eighth-anchor/.

For a state catalog page in a brief: Oregon, AMERICA'S SCHOOL TRUST LIBRARY (May 12, 2026), https://schooltrusts.net/states/oregon/.

Citing primary sources reached through the Library

When the Library hosts or links a statute, a court filing, or a historical document, cite the primary source directly — the statute citation, the reporter citation, the archival call number — and name the Library as the access point.

So a statute reached through the Library is cited to its code, then noted as available via the Library:

Or. Admis. Act of 1859, 11 Stat. 383, § 4 (available via America's School Trust Library at https://schooltrusts.net/sources/oregon-admissions-act/).

A discovery production hosted on the Library:

Pls.' Mot. to Compel, Or. Advocates for Sch. Trust Lands v. State, No. 24CV38372 (Or. Cir. Ct. Coos Cnty. May 2, 2026) (available via America's School Trust Library at https://schooltrusts.net/court/24cv38372/motion-to-compel/).

The reader who needs to verify the statute looks it up in the published code; the reader who needs the discovery filing finds it where we hosted it. Both readers know exactly where to look.

Citing figures from the Counting House

Every figure in the Counting House carries a confidence badge and an underlying source — a statute, an audit, an agency report, a peer-reviewed study. Cite the underlying source first. The Counting House page is the access point and goes in parentheses or in a "via" note.

Or. Dep't of State Lands, Common School Fund Annual Report 12 (2024) (figure available via America's School Trust Library, Counting House, at https://schooltrusts.net/counting-house/oregon-csf-balance/).

The principle: a number's authority comes from the source the number is drawn from, not from the page that displays it.

Permission and reuse

Catalog text and Reading Room essays written by the Library are available for quotation under standard fair-use principles for scholarship, journalism, court filings, and legislative work. Quote what you need; cite what you quote. Quoting a Reading Room essay at length, or republishing a page in whole or substantial part, requires written permission. Contact details are on the About page.

Material the Library hosts but did not write — statutes, court filings, archival documents, third-party photographs — is governed by the rights that attach to the original source. For takedown procedure and the full rights notice, see Rights, Use, and Takedown.

If a citation looks wrong

Accuracy is the only thing we ask of the citing reader, and accuracy is also what we ask of ourselves. If you follow a citation and the page no longer says what we said it said, or if a figure has changed since you cited it, use the Submit-Correction control at the foot of the page in question. We will look at it, fix it if it needs fixing, and note the change. Citations that point to a moving target serve no one; we work hard to keep the targets steady. For the full correction protocol, see Corrections.