[sword-devel] Bibtex for modules

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011, Daniel Owens <dhowens at pmbx.net> wrote:

> As a PhD student, I personally think this would be very helpful. Many
> different bibliographic database programs can import BibTeX data, so it
> makes getting information into programs like Zotero (a Firefox extension
> that is the most popular choice among my colleauges) very easy. If the
> data is embedded in the conf file, then conf files online are a ready
> source of bibliographic data for someone seeking to cite a source in
> SWORD. ...

I can see many good reasons for Sword having functionality to "output"
bibliographic data ... in any format/encoding.

But I still am confused about what it is that consistutes the source. The
module? The module content and therefore the original publisher (and
possible copyright holder)?

> This came home to me when I was preparing a paper for my
> application to the PhD program I am now in, and I had to find the
> bibliographic information for Aquinas' Summa. ...

Which makes me think it is the content you're after. That it occurs in an
Sword module is irrelevant and therefore the original suggestion is
speciious.

Now if the source atribution is recorded in the .conf file fine, but for
those of us who want it in some other format such as Zotero's Open
Citation Style, refer, MedLine, or even RFC 1807 formats insisting it is
held in BibTeX (sadly a minority format these days) is unusable.

> ... It took a bit of effort, but BibTeX data would have saved me the
> time and headache. It is yet another enticement to users to start using
> SWORD.

While I'd have no quibble with bibliographic data being recorded in .conf
files it should be there in a neutral form and specific functions written
to produce it in the users required/requested format.

Regards, Trevor

<>< Re: deemed!