Item type for classical works

[bdarcus]

In publishing on well-known classical and ancient works, a simplified citation format can be used to refer to the work, rather than a published instance of it. One possible solution in CSL would be to provide an item type for which bibliography output is suppressed.

The following links are relevant to the issue:

Comment thread on the Zotero forums

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/9293/classical-citations/

Sections of the CMS that contain examples, although not explicit descriptions, of such citations

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch17/ch17_sec251.html

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch17/ch17_sec260.html

The xbiblio-devel discussion thread that led to the filing of this ticket

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?set=custom&viewmonth=200911&viewday=25&forum_name=xbiblio-devel&style=threaded&max_rows=25&submit=Change+View

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• Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/bdarcus/csl-schema/issue/13
• Originally Reported By: Frank Bennett
• Originally Created At: 2009-11-25 21:29:26

[bdarcus]

• Changed content.

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Original Comment By: Frank Bennett

[bdarcus]

• Changed content.

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Original Comment By: Frank Bennett

[bdarcus]

• Changed content.

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Original Comment By: Frank Bennett

[bdarcus]

In citeproc-js, users will be able to address this use case by simply suppressing bibliography output for particular items (such as, say, items of type "manuscript" that have no date field entry). This ticket can be closed.

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Original Comment By: Frank Bennett

[bdarcus]

• Changed status from new to wontfix.

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Original Comment By: Frank Bennett

[rmzelle]

It looks like some style formats print classical works differently in the bibliography than current literature, so reopening this. See https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/pull/2584#issuecomment-289180427

[denismaier]

That's a complicated issue that most likely won't make it into CSL 1.1. But just a few comments:

• Classical works can be published as books, but they can also be published in collection or in journals. For biblatex, @maieul has created a package which covers these and other cases. So there seems to be some demand for this among classicists.
• For simpler cases it might be enough to use the mechanism provided by CSL-m's classic item type which makes it possible to exclude all such items from the bibliography. (There are standard abbreviations so no need to include them in the bibliography.) In other cases users might want a special bibliography section containing only classical works.

Tough issue...

[denismaier]

Or, in the citations you have citations like Josephus, *J.W.*, but in the bibliography you'd still list the consulted edition like a normal book. But: these critical editions are more complicated than what CSL can handle at the moment. (Biblatex's datamodel with title, booktitle, maintitle, series could illustrate what would be needed to cover these case, see https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/issues/111. And yes, this is not an edge case, but common enough in certain disciplines.)

[bwiernik]

The simplest approach would be to create a classic type. Disciplines that render these differently can do so in styles. Styles that don't make a distinction can include classic in item type lists alongside book.

[denismaier]

I am totally in favor of adding a classic item type. However, I am not sure that this is already sufficient. As outlined above, a classic can be published as a book, or as a journal article. So you need author and title, but also publication infos according to the particular type. Perhaps a hierarchical model would be best here? Or CSL-M's alt- mechanism.

[bwiernik]

Or, like report, song, book, a classic might have a container-title, editor, issue, etc.?

[denismaier]

Classics are complicated beasts. They can have container-titles, editors, translators, issues, volumes... Sometimes you don't include that information in your bibliographies, and for the citation you only use an obscure abbreviation, and everyone knows what it is, sometimes you do this, but you add the consulted edition to the bibliography. Sometimes you mention the consulted edition in your first footnote.

[bwiernik]

Yes, but that's not so different a case from paper-conference, which might be published in a periodical or book-look proceedings, report, which might be similar to a book or to a chapter, or book, which we've discussed might have a container-title as part of an anthology.

An alternative approach to having a classic type might be how CSLm handles gazette types. There, items of type legislation or regulation might have the variable gazette, which modifies the formatting behavior for items published in gazettes rather than codified. For classics, a book, article-journal, etc. could have a variable is-classic which if present indicates the item should have classic formatting.

[maieul]

you may look at the "Bookinother" biblatex package I wrote concerning such type of problem

[denismaier]

I'd prefer a classic item type with additional information in alt- variables, but perhaps there are simpler solutions.... If we adopt the is-classic approach, how to do you add the second title? For example, this book here has a title "Das Leben des Weisen", but you will most likely cite it as "De Abrahamo".

[denismaier]

you may look at the "Bookinother" biblatex package I wrote concerning such type of problem

Thanks! Yes, I've already linked to your package above.

[bwiernik]

That's title-short or <text variable="title" form="short"/>. The style contains a conditional with formatting for classic versus other types. That is how it would work with either a classic type or is-classic.

I also think that a classic type would be generally clearer and that nuances of classics in containers can be reasonably handled with conditional tests. Just wanted to throw out is-classic as an option. I imagine that there won't be many cases where scholars in fields that cite classics would be publishing with a style that didn't support the classic type.

[denismaier]

That's title-short or <text variable="title" form="short"/>. The style contains a conditional with formatting for classic versus other types. That is how it would work with either a classic type or is-classic.

Simple enough.

I also think that a classic type would be generally clearer and that nuances of classics in containers can be reasonably handled with conditional tests. Just wanted to throw out is-classic as an option. I imagine that there won't be many cases where scholars in fields that cite classics would be publishing with a style that didn't support the classic type.

What do you think about integrating this in generic styles. Support in Chicago and MLA won't hurt, I guess... But for this, we will want a robust and simple solution.

[bwiernik]

I think we can integrate into Chicago, MLA, APA to provide a good example for how to do this.