On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 21:44:40 -0500, you wrote:
Citing a personal communication is much better than citing nothing at all. I have used an email from a representative of Babson College, for example, on the Babson College Talk page, as a reference for whether or not their giant world globe rotates. (It was built to rotated and once rotated but it doesn't now).
Same in academic papers, I believe: you can cite a personal communication, but it is deprecated and should only really be used as corroboration of facts otherwise known or inferred. Guy (JzG)