Citation guides assume one is engaged in contemporaneous research and has the luxury of fully documenting one's sources. But in the real world research foci shift over time and a passing reference or hallway conversation at a conference can take on a new relevance long after the book being read has been re-shelved or the identity of the passing acquaintance who mentioned some nugget of historical interest has been long forgotten. The safe answer from a plagiarism avoidance perspective is to excise the idea and any fruits from the poisonous tree from one's writing, but this seems like the wrong result from a preservation and advancement of knowledge perspective, since it would prevent the idea from being shared, block one's own research from progressing in its direction, and foreclose the possibility of someone reading whatever context one can now recall from reaching out to provide the proper citation. Do any citation systems address this issue and provide a mechanism to flesh out as much context as one can remember, as in "I am certain that either a grad student or junior researcher in industry at a conference in Pittsburg (which I am fairly confident was related to programming languages and held in the late 1990's) told me he had learned that a certain programming languages tooling project was re-branded as robotics research to pursue defense funding"
This is a common issue in research, and it can be challenging to address. While citation guides typically assume that researchers document their sources contemporaneously, some citation styles do allow for indirect citations or "citing a source within a source."
One possible approach would be to acknowledge that the idea is not originally yours, explain your recollection of how you first encountered it, and give credit to the sources you do remember. For example, you could use a phrase like "As I recall hearing from a conversation at a conference several years ago..." and then provide as much detail as you can about the setting or context.
Another option would be to reach out to colleagues or professional networks to see if anyone remembers the presentation or conversation you're referring to. There may be a chance that someone else recalls the origin of the idea, and can provide additional context or resources to build on.
Regardless of the approach you take, it's important to give credit where credit is due and make an effort to be transparent about the sources of your ideas. This builds credibility and trust within the academic community, and also helps to ensure that ideas are accurately attributed and can be further developed.
In my opinion, if you can not track down it, you do not credit and build on it.
Fortunately there are proved ways you can track what you are looking for. But by the information you have provided it is not clear you are looking for the source or the content of the source. Or simply you want to cite or you want to read. Look at these please
ethically credit
build on an idea
the book being read has been re-shelved
it would prevent the idea from being shared,
block one's own research from progressing in its direction,
and many more by you.
Of course according to information seeking theories your given here is completely natural. Once we had reference interview in physical libraries and information centers, we could easily understand what the user was asking for
Any way 6 different answers are possible for this request. I talk about one of them, today. based on this by you:
Do any citation systems address this issue and provide a mechanism to flesh out as much context as one can remember,
As you spoke about 1990s, yes at that time we had Dialog system (online direct) and Silver Platter (CD Rom). Both now marked as "was". they don't exist unless in wikis. These two had countless fields that we could enter the related key terms or descriptors and retrieve what ever the user was seeking for. But they were Command Line, now mostly Menu Driven. As far as I can remember databases such as First Search, Proquest, Ebsco and some others had both forms, the first for advanced users or librarians and the second for all. I mean in these years.
Also many libraries and univ libraries every where have access to many databases, even with their own interface and all or part of all collections (articles, books, thesis...) searchable via that interface. The bigger the university of public library you have bigger chance.
So if the case is important for you first find an organization (univ, info center, libs) with bigger access. Then go for professional searcher that most big libraries have.
Ask for search in command line as there are many more fields and options.
Ask for the librarian read the fields, (you can decide better by hearing them and how and where they can search in a given document)
Think of different synonyms. for example common and daily use words and scientific or technical terms. Look at these "foreign Language" "second language", L2" three options for searching documents related or near to each other. Another example, Corn or Maize or Zea mays. You know these are just examples. None related to yours but give you idea of finding related terms that can help you and what you have in mind.
Go for subject headings such as the one we have in Medicine (MeSH). You might have a subject heading in the field that you are looking for the text.
You certainly know that there are many different databases, in STM (Science, Technical, Medical) such as Taylor & Francis or Science Direct your chances are not high. Instead go for abstract databases, such as ICONDA, LISTA, AGRIS, and many more, available for all scientific branches. These have sophisticated search fields and capabilities. But know that the abstract systems have been scattered among databases such as EBSCO, Proquest and beyond...
I am done. Feedbacks tell me finished or go for the second.
Enjoy.
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