Master bibliography

It is generally recommended that a master bibliography, containing all works cited in a publication or project (whether including discussions or only previous publications of texts) be encoded in a separate, single file. This might validate to the EpiDoc schema or to a generic TEI bibliographic schema, or could even be a free-standing database, or an HTML page with an id for each bibliographical entry.

If encoding in TEI, the bibliography should comprise a structured list either of bibl elements (recommended) or biblStruct elements (probably overkill for most projects, but see second example below). An xml:id on each item will allow referencing or linking from the localized bibliographic citations in individual texts.

Master bibliography in Zotero

You may want to maintain your bibliography in a Zotero group library or into your personal Zotero library and use that for your EpiDoc project.

You can export a master bibliography in TEI from Zotero to work following the guidelines above.

You can also use directly the Zotero API to print your bibliography using the example Stylesheets.

To do the latter you will need to

1. Enter data correctly in Zotero
2. Enter citations in your file (see below)
3. Compile the bibliography and style the citations with the a CLS Style (it is very wise to use the available ones, but you can still create your own)

To use this feature of the Example Stylesheets you will have to select a value for the parameter bibliography.

• none: (default), applies any other locally specified templates and does neither of the following
• localTEI: the path to the TEI xml bibliography file needs to be given in the parameter localBibl, with a relative path from the xslt (default location, the parent directory of the xslt). This will look up for each bibl the value given in any ptr/@target and print author or editor and date from the TEI bibliography
• zotero: selecting this will use the example stylesheets to call the Zotero API. There are a series of other parameters which need to be set
  • parameter ZoteroUorG : which selects if the target library in zotero is a group library (default) or a user library
  • parameter ZoteroKey : which gives the key to the library (for the time being it defaults on the EAGLE group bibliography)
  • parameter ZoteroNS : specifies a namespace, if tags in the Zotero library use any (default on nothing)
  • parameter ZoteroStyle : specifies the Zotero Style to be used for the output (defaults on the chicago-author-date, as I think Zotero does anyway)

The assumptions here are that you have an accessible and open library in Zotero, and that you have assigned a tag to each record you want to use, perhaps with a prefix, in case the same bibliography is used by several projects.

Given the defaults above, if nothing but bibliography=zotero is specified, the transformation will then look into the EAGLE group library for items with tags equal to the ones given in each ptr with target of each bibl and will return bibl elements present in a <div[@type='bibliography']> as full citations, whereas it will print a formatted citation for the other bibl, wherever they occur. The tag assigned in Zotero MUST be uniquely assigned in the library.

This is testable using the parameter edn-structure=eagle parameter.

The following example, adapted from the Beta Maṣāḥǝft project, shows the encoding using bibl and a ptr with target equal to the Zotero tag, in two different contexts, the bibliography and a citation in the edition. The following explanation will clarify the settings and the output.

The project uses a Group library in Zotero, so ZoteroUorG=group has been left to the default value, ZoteroKey has been set to the group key 358366 of the EthioStudies group.

This Group Library is use by several projects, so the ZoteroNS parameter has been set to that used by this project, bm:. One could haveThe project has also its own style, and therefore the ZoteroStyle parameter has been set to hiob-ludolf-centre-for-ethiopian-studies, the short name of the style saved in the CSL repository.

Full guidelines used by this project for the data entry in the bibliography and for the style specification can be seen here Zotero HLCES bibliography workflow.

This transformation will thus call for each entry the Zotero API for the record with the zotero tag bm:RIE1 and print for the first bibl Bernard et al. 1991, 279-280, for the second "RIE I. Bernard, É., A.J. Drewes, and R. Schneider 1991. Recueil des Inscriptions de l’Éthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite, Introduction de Fr. Anfray, I: Les documents (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1991)."

Bibliographic citations

Individual texts will often contain multiple bibliographic citations, for example to works cited in commentary, the source of translations or photographs, and most importantly, to previous publications of the same text by other scholars. Within an EpiDoc edition, such citations should be contained in the <div type="bibliography">, either in an unstructured p (if the bibliography is a paragraph of free text with connecting prose such as, "First published in ..., from notebooks; reprinted in ...; whence ... . Later re-edited from autopsy by..." etc.) or in a listBibl if the citations are a simple (or numbered) list.

Some projects prefer to create multiple <div type="bibliography"> sections for each text in order to group bibliographic citations thematically (e.g., primary editions, prior editions, derivative editions, translations, available illustrations, and the like. The subtype may be used to distinguish between them and to facilitate processing. In particular, lists of images published on-line or in print by third parties are sometimes encoded within <div type="bibliography" subtype="illustrations">, regarding which see further Images, figures, and facsimile.

An alternative to creating multiple <div>s as described above, it is also possible to use the type attribute on a <bibl> element to indicate the nature of the source. Suggested values are:

• principalEdition or editioPrinceps
• secondary (secondary source)
• edition (any edition other than princeps)
• ancientEdition
• modernEdition
• citation (text or object is cited in the source)
• corrections
• illustrations
• otherPublications
• translation

Each bibliographic citation may be encoded relatively simply in a bibl element in the form that is desired in the online (or print) edition, be that a full bibliographic reference or abbreviated author + date or similar. It is often useful, however, to link back to the entry in a bibliographic authority (generally the master bibliography), for example so that:

1. edition can hyperlink back from short title to a full or even annotated bibliography;
2. bibliographic citations (full or short) can be automatically generated from the main bibliography, providing more consistency and reducing the need for multiple entry of identical information;
3. a bibliographic concordance can be generated (using the idno of the current edition, the xml:id of the bibliographic item, and the citedRange of the bibliographic citation in the edition.

Assuming a master bibliography in TEI containing the entries from the first example above, the bibliographic citation below would (a) point to the Reynolds 1971 title therein, and (b) state unambiguously that the text in whose edition this citation appears was previously published as number 3 in her edition.

This would allow, firstly, the edition to display text such as ‘Reynolds 1971, 3’ or ‘Reynolds, 'Zawiet Msus' (1971), no. 3’ or similar; and secondly a bibliographic concordance to be generated that lists all of the inscriptions in each previous publication, showing which inscription in the current collection corresponds to each. (See for example the InsAph concordance for a Reynolds article.)

The following example, adapted from the Ancient Inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea (IOSPE), demonstrates the use of a single <div type="bibliography"> with two internal bibliographic lists of editions, one for each of two texts on the one support. Note the use of ptr to refer to bibliographic items in an external bibliographic list, as described above.

This example, adapted from the Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campā, demonstrates the use of two, subtyped <div type="bibliography"> sections, one listing previous editions of the text and the other listing other secondary work on the text. It also demonstrates the use of a prose bibliographic description, rather than a simple list, in order to provide users with information about the relationship between cited editions.

Customization of biblScope unit attribute

The TEI allows bibliographical references in bibl or biblStruct elements to be constrained to one or more subdivisions using the unit attribute. A number of recommended values are provided (e.g., chapter, volume). An additional set of values common to epigraphical publications supplements the TEI list. N.B., this list merely represents an open list of suggested values. While you are not obligated to use these values, or, in fact, any value at all, consistent application of unit attributes should be considered a best practice.

Responsibility for this section

1. Gabriel Bodard, author
2. Pietro Liuzzo, Author
3. Scott Vanderbilt, Author