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COinS tags for machine-readable metadata

Example of Zotero reading bibliographic information from modified citation templates through the use of hidden COinS OpenURL tags. The tags are generated by the templates after the visible text.

I've been reading about bibliographic metadata and trying to figure out how to make things like Zotero work well with Wikipedia's reference system. If we add these OpenURL things called COinS [1][2] to our citation templates, it will allow automated retrieval of bibliographic data by things like Zotero, OpenURL resolvers, and so on. OpenURL resolvers let you look directly at a scientific paper from our references section, as if it were a link, through your school library, so you don't have to copy and paste article titles to find a copy of a paper, etc. Automatically loading data into Zotero is good for keeping track of research you are doing, and in the future it could be made to output ref tags, too, making the whole referencing system much easier to use. It has a lot of potential.

I hacked up some test templates for cite journal and cite book, to demonstrate, and I hope they can be fixed up and debugged and go live in the real templates. See User:Omegatron/COinS testing for examples of references made with modified citation templates. The only difference is that each reference has a hidden span tag at the end which contains all the same information in a machine-readable form. If you have Zotero, you can click the little folder icon in your address bar and load any of the references on the page into your library (see image). If you have OpenURL Referrer configured, you can click a link after each journal article or book that takes you directly to your library's electronic copy, or tells you whether they have a copy on the shelf.

To really implement this well, though, we would need to separate the ISBN from the other identifiers in the template, like the DOI is separate, so the COinS tag can get the identifier values by themselves. So instead of | ISBN=1-111-22222-9, you would have:

| ISBN = 1-111-22222-9 | LCC = Z253.U69 | OCLC = 123456789 | DOI = 10.1016/j.coi.2004.08.001

This would render in the visible output as if you had typed ISBN 1-111-22222-9 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum, LCC Z253.U69, OCLC 123456789, and doi:10.1016/j.coi.2004.08.001. But then the actual numbers could be included directly into the COinS without the prepended "ISBN " or link, like &rft.isbn=1-111-22222-9 or &rft_id=info:doi/10.1016%2Fj.coi.2004.08.001, which would make the tag unique to that book or article, allowing automatic tools to extract the missing info (and maybe put it back in the article someday?) Can we separate the ISBN, LCC, and OCLC? Don't books usually have more than one identifier anyway?

Likewise with ISSN, PMI, DOI in the cite journal template.

Problems with my first implementation:

  • If it can be done with template logic, keys should not appear if their corresponding value is blank. In other words, we should have no equals signs with nothing after them. If there's no pages value entered in the template, for instance, my prototype still has "&rft.pages=" in the tag. It should have nothing for the pages key.
  • If a DOI is in the template, it should put &rft.id=doi:{{{doi}}} in the tag, but if a URL is in the template, it should put &rft.id={{{url}}}, without the prefix. Probably a DOI should override a URL, if both are in the template. (Or maybe it's allowed to have more than one id? I'm not sure about this.)
  • It doesn't handle [[wikilinks]] in the text of fields, interpreting them literally.
  • It doesn't handle things like HTML tags, either, breaking the COinS tag if not urlencoded. Wrapping the values with urlencode: makes the special characters literal and edible, but not correct. We really need a parserfunction that strips out HTML and wiki markup...

Maybe we should consider adding more fields for the other things they cover, too? — Omegatron 06:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added some #if's to Omegatron's cite book [3], Installed Zotero on my Firefox 2.0 and tested a bit. The "keys should not appear if their corresponding value is blank" should be solved. --Ligulem 14:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
doi/url done as well [4]. --Ligulem 14:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
:-) Collaboration! I'm going to make some more changes... — Omegatron 17:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I urlencoded everything, as per OpenURL spec. Also, my bad: "Multiple instances of rft_id do not indicate multiple Referents, but rather multiple ways to identify a single Referent". So we can have one for URL and one for DOI. — Omegatron 17:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Instead of {{LCC}}, I think you should use {{LCCN}}, even if it's a bit more complicated. At least, it's more obviously unique, and it's easy to know what to add or not. Circeus 19:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... Why exactly do you need to break up the number like that? Why can't you just urlencode the argument?
If I understand correctly, the COinS tag wants to see &rft_id=info:lccn/G635.C66+H86+1997, so urlencoding would work for that, too.
I am adding the extra parameters like isbn=, pmid= to my test templates... — Omegatron 20:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
IIRC, it's an idiosyncrasy of the LoC search engine that requires the argument in {{LCCN}} to be split. I suggest you ask the one who implemented the template.
The LCC and the LCCN are not thesame thing. LCCN is the unique card number of the book, whereas the LCC is it's official LoC classification number. LCC Z253.U69 corresponds to LCCN 82-2832, but {{LCC}} is more often than not less specific than {{LCCN}}, see LCC PQ2683.E65 for Bernard Werber's Empire des Anges, as opposed to LCCN 00-359331.Circeus 20:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh. I wasn't aware they were actually different numbers. They should probably both be included then. — Omegatron 21:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, LCC is not really a unique identifier is it? Do people even use it in references?
As for LCCN, the template with three parameters makes it difficult. I don't know of an easy way to fulfill all of the things we would like at once; ease of entering the number (unnormalized), showing up in the COinS (normalized), showing up on the screen (unnormalized), and linking to the LOC catalog (normalized). I'm not sure what to do about this one. — Omegatron 00:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not THAT much of a problem, since we rarely include more than 2 IDs (usually a doi and a PMID in my case), and that itself is rare. Most of the times a DOI or ISBN is available. When not, a PMID might be, especially for medical articles, in such a case only (and only if there is no free online copy) will I include an ISSN. LCCNs and OCLC numbers only become relevant for books without ISBN, and they aren't that commonly used as references.Circeus 01:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

But still. It should be easier.  :-) So I asked for some things:

  • Bugzilla: 8160: ParserFunction for Library of Congress Control Numbers (LCCN)
  • Bugzilla: 8161: ParserFunction for stripping HTML and wiki markup

— Omegatron 17:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


So it looks like we can implement both the COinS and the more specific parameters, like isbn= instead of id=ISBN . The problems:

  • COinS tags will occasionally have markup in them. This will be fixed with a feature enhancement in the future. Does this matter?
  • LCCNs would need to be linked to with the id parameter, still, until a feature request is filled for a parser.

In the meantime, should I go ahead and implement what I can? Does everyone agree that explicit isbn=, oclc= and so on are better than a generic id tag? — Omegatron 17:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by "In the meantime, should I go ahead and implement what I can?"? Does this mean you are asking to copy User:Omegatron/cite book to template:cite book? --Ligulem 18:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes. I wouldn't copy the lccn part since it doesn't work without a software change, of course. But yes, implement the proposed changes (COinS, isbn=, oclc=, documentation update) in the real template that people actually use.
The OpenURL mailing list basically agrees that a few instances of HTML and wiki markup in the fields doesn't matter. Incorrect information could just as easily have been human error, and some OpenURL resolvers will be able to handle links with errors anyway, from the other error-free information present.
Then when we get markup-stripping tags, we won't have to worry about that at all. — Omegatron 20:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
So, could you please prepare a final to-be copied version of the template code so we know exactly what we are talking about? --Ligulem 23:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

As a general comment, that COinS change for cite book adds a considerable amount of if's to the template, although in a pretty straightforward way by adding to the end of the existing template code, so it doesn't really make the template much more complex, from an editorial standpoint. I'm not exactly sure about the long term consequences of this (No, I won't invoke the Server Load Mantra™:-). What I fear is that this will be another of those "no way back things" - even if it turns out to be not that heavily used later. But I don't want to complain about adding new features. If they are needed and they serve a purpose then fine. So please don't count my voice as an oppose. Just thinking out loud. Adding a new param "isbn" seems sensible to me. So no problem at all with that (but of course that will be a hard "no return" once added). --Ligulem 23:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

So, could you please prepare a final to-be copied version of the template code so we know exactly what we are talking about?

Ok. Should it include an LCC field? LCCs are call numbers, and are not unique identifiers to each book, as opposed to LCCNs, which are unique. Does anyone use LCCs as an identifier, as shown in the examples on the doc page?

What I fear is that this will be another of those "no way back things"

I don't see:
  1. Why that would be true - nothing is going to be built on top of this tag. It's simply for external applications to retrieve bibliographic information. It could be removed with no ill effects.
  2. Why "no way back" would be a bad thing. Isn't "progress" another way to say the same thing?

Adding a new param "isbn" seems sensible to me. So no problem at all with that (but of course that will be a hard "no return" once added).

Yes, but if it's a sensible addition, why would we turn back? — Omegatron 16:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
"Yes, but if it's a sensible addition, why would we turn back?" I don't know. Maybe for "problems" like these: [5], [6]? True-substing the proposed new version will not please Sam Korn. As already said, isbn is fine. Please provide the new code, leave away LCC for now (can later be added). I believe we can stop discussing on this. We either do it or not. Ok? --Ligulem 17:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Just thought about this: Make sure the current "id" parameter remains usable for backward compatibility purpose. While you're at it, you could include the tags into {{doi}}, {{LCCN}} and {{ISSN}} so that some article would already include them (and reduce the number of such tags in cite book itself) ? Circeus 17:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Of course, nobody is proposing to break existing calls. "id" will remain forever on this template. --Ligulem 17:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Don't worry. Every existing instance will still work and everything will be backwards compatible.

While you're at it, you could include the tags into {{doi}}, {{LCCN}} and {{ISSN}} so that some article would already include them (and reduce the number of such tags in cite book itself) ?

I don't understand what you mean by this. You won't be using templates like this anymore. The templates will be called by the cite book template itself. You'll just provide the numbers for them. In other words, don't use id = ISBN 1-111-22222-9 anymore. Use isbn = 1-111-22222-9. It will output the same link either way, but this way it's more semantic, easier to enter, and can output a valid COinS tag, which greatly helps finding the book in your local library with automated tools.
I've removed LCC and LCCN from User:Omegatron/cite book and User:Omegatron/cite book/doc. So these are now the code I am proposing this template be changed to. See User:Omegatron/COinS_testing#Book_template for examples of output. Any problems?
I didn't update the tremendously messy Prerequisites and Brief Instructions, but that should probably be reformatted to remove all the NBSPs anyway. — Omegatron 20:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Omegatron/cite book

I'm a bit concerned about this part: 

  {{
  #if: {{{oclc|}}} | . {{OCLC|{{{oclc}}}}}
}}

This calls template:OCLC. Do we really need this new oclc param? If yes, could we change the code such that cite book doesn't start being a meta-template? (currently it isn't). If no, {{{oclc}}} may not have an equal sign as its value because of [7], so at minimum should be rewritten as: 

  {{
  #if: {{{oclc|}}} | . {{OCLC|1={{{oclc}}}}}
}}

--Ligulem 22:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

From a casual look at Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:OCLC, more than half of {{OCLC}} instances are inside the cite book template (id={{OCLC|), and it's one of the examples given in cite book's documentation, so I don't see why it shouldn't be included. There's even an instance of | ISBN = 1-890014-00-1, {{OCLC|36080195}} in Seventh-day Adventist Church. That's just begging to be two built-in fields.
I intend to add more later, actually, like LCCN (when we can parse it properly).
It would be better to transclude the actual template instead of duplicating its functionality, so that future changes to the template will propagate to these instances, too.
Also, I think OCLC numbers are just numbers, but you can make it equal-sign robust if you want. — Omegatron 03:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok. I don't care anymore. --Ligulem 09:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok. I think I'm going to add the isbn and oclc by themselves, first, and add the COinS stuff later, in case there are any problems. — Omegatron 15:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Implementing

Alright. It's been weeks since I suggested this, and I added the ISBN and OCLC fields separately. I think I've been cautious enough. I'm going to add the COinS tag to the actual template now. — Omegatron 23:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

How can I find all Wiki articles referencing a particular author?

I would like to search for all Wikipedia articles which use this template to reference a particular author. Is there a way to do that? PAR 17:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

No. It's hoped that it will be possible in the future with a real referencing system. For now, do a Google search. — Omegatron 18:02, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

How to work around Cite errors?

I'm currently editing a long page and adding references from 4-5 different books. Each book is referenced between 10-20 times for quotes and figures verification. As such I'm getting 'Cite error 3; Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many'.

Is there anyway to work around this? Would splitting all instances of <ref name=firstsource> into <ref name=first source1> and <ref name=first source2> work? Should I just enter the books into <references/> manually? Foxhill 16:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You need to add quotes around the name of the reference (<ref name="first source2">) OR use reference names without spaces (<ref name=Sourcepagenumber> or <ref name=first_source_1>). It's exactly like you'd do with HTMl tags! Trick: ALWAYS use quotes ;-) Circeus 17:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
That works, cheers Foxhill 00:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Back to semi-colon before coauthors?

Given the request at cite journal (at Template_talk:Cite_journal#Using_a_semi-colon_to_streamline_last.2C_first_format_with_multiple_authors) and the negative voices above at Template_talk:Cite_book#Edit_request:_Comma_instead_of_semicolon_before_coauthors I tend to change the comma before coauthors back to semicolon:

Which would mean to do again: 

  #if: {{{author|{{{last|}}}}}}
  | {{ #if: {{{coauthors|}}} | <nowiki>;</nowiki> {{{coauthors}}} }}

At least it would make sense to have it the same on both templates. Please consider also responding on on Template_talk:Cite_journal#Using_a_semi-colon_to_streamline_last.2C_first_format_with_multiple_authors. It might be best to discuss this over at cite journal so we can have the discussion in one place. --Ligulem 00:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It can't happen too soon as far as I'm concerned. Whether other templates follow suit is somewhat irrelevent to me, since I don't use them, but I would argue that consistency of presentation is a good thing. -- Cain Mosni 23:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Done. --Ligulem 15:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Subtitles

Shouldn’t there be a subtitle field?

-- Leandro GFC Dutra 17:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

How are they normally formatted in book citations? — Omegatron 17:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Placement of year

Here's an old issue I remember talking about with others a year or more ago. It's a minor stylistic point, to be sure, but perhaps it's worth a mention again. Forgive me if this has been discussed to death while I wasn't paying attention.

One reason that I never use the "cite book" template is because, for standard history writing like I do, the template puts the year of publication in the wrong place when using footnotes. For example, the template gives you something like this:

  • Bloggs, Joe (1974). Book of Bloggs. London: Mega Publishing.

Putting the date right after the author's name is the favored approach when using an author-date parenthetical style. That is, if I'm writing some text and have a parenthetical note (Bloggs, 1974), in the reference list I'll want "Bloggs" and "1974" to be grouped together so that the reader can easily find the cited source. This template works fine with the author-date style.

With footnotes, on the other hand, one doesn't usually give the simple author and date information as in a parenthetical cite. Using the short form of the Chicago Manual of Style, for example, a footnote citing page 23 of the above book would be Bloggs, Book of Bloggs, 23, and the book would be listed in the references as:

  • Bloggs, Joe. Book of Bloggs. London: Mega Publishing, 1974.

In this style, which is prevalent in academic history, it's more important to group the author's name with the title of the work (rather than the date of publication), since that's what is listed in the footnote.

Like I said, this is not a major issue. Back when I discussed this previously, footnotes were not yet ubiquitous on Wikipedia, and so a "cite book" template which used the author-date format was a reasonable choice, since it was not clear which citation style would emerge as the popular choice. Are parenthetical citations still widely used on Wikipedia? Now that footnotes are all the rage, if indeed they are, perhaps the "cite book" template should reflect that, and demote the year of publication to the end of the entry. Or is the template formatted in the author-date style as a sort of stylistic compromise between footnotes and parenthetical cites? —Kevin 17:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I second that. `'mikka 19:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I third it. Given that footnote references are now pretty much used throughout Wikipedia, I think the citation templates should all move to having the date at the end of the reference, with the obvious exception of the specific Harvard reference templates. Ideally, any articles that use Harvard-style citations with {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, etc., should be migrated to {{Harvard reference}}, etc. The current style of the cite templates is completely unsuited to footnote referencing.--Srleffler 05:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Parenthetical author-year citation is still quite common on WP, although apparently not in history. And there is more than one style of "footnote referencing" — there are articles that combine footnotes and references into one section, and articles that put complete reference information into a references section and put what would otherwise be parenthetical citations into footnotes. So I doubt that there is consensus to move the year to the end.

But rather than choosing one or the other as the "only" way, the right thing to do would be to make a true/false parameter named something like yearfirst so that yearfirst=true would give the current version and yearfirst=false would give the version with the year at the end. CMummert · talk 14:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

That would defeat the whole purpose of having a citation template with a uniform style. — Omegatron 14:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki

Hi, may somebody pls add pms:Template:Cité un lìber to the interwiki links? Thanks pms:user:Bèrto 'd Sèra --212.42.75.247 20:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Ligulem 21:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

And hu:Sablon:Cite_book? -- Harp 13:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Done, but you don't need to request an edit-protected for that--interwiki links are in Template:Cite book/doc's includeonly section, which anyone can edit, as it doesn't affect the maintemplate (it's part of a noinclude block there). grendel|khan 16:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Title translation

Would it be possible to add something like "translationtitle" to give english translationsof foreign-language titles? That could be a prarenthesis in normal text after the italic title. Circeus 12:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I second this request, or somethign similar. Take a look at the [Russian] reference on Greater Argonaut. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I third this request :) also I wonder what one has to do when referring to an English-language edition (printed in 1988) that is a translation of an original Russian edition (printed in 1980). Is origdate appropriate to be used (for 1980) in this case? --BACbKA 14:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


Inline citation

Assuming that the main cite cook template is used as a main reference, how would I use it for an inline citation? I'm citing a book many diferent times in one bio and can't see using the main template over 10 timesand what's not very long bio. Right now I just have the author and page in the notes section, with the book as a reference in the references section. --Wizardman 16:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

All those Q's and mine's not answered yet. Anyone? --Wizardman 04:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
You can either use footnotes and put just enough info in each footnote (author, title, and page numbers if applicable) or you can use parenthetical citations like (Smith 2004:pp. 5–8). The main thing is to make it obvious to the reader what is going on; there is not a unified style that every article must use. It sounds like what you are doing is fine. CMummert 14:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it sounds like you are doing it right. I find that using the Chicago "brief" footnote style is very useful for repeated book citations: see Daniel Boone for a featured biography which uses the "brief" style (or whatever the Chicago people call it) the way that it is generally used in historical writing. There are other styles, of course.
Your question touches upon a fundamental area of confusion which seems to be rampant on Wikipedia: the difference between reference lists and citations. This template creates an entry for a reference list at the end of an article. That's why the author's last name comes first: to facilitate alphabetizing the works by the author's last name. It makes little sense to use this template inside a footnote, since footnotes are organized by number, not alphabetized. Some people do use this template inside footnotes, but I think they are confused and in need of some good natured guidance. There are times (particularly in brief articles) when you'll want to combine your reference list and citations into one section, but the layout this template creates doesn't really work well for that purpose. —Kevin 17:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Then what would you use in citations? This template should work in both. — Omegatron 18:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're asking me, since above I explain what I would use in citations, giving the Daniel Boone article as an example. I generally use the Chicago Manual of Style because I write history articles, because that's the standard in history; if I wrote scientific articles, or used a lot of Internet sources, I'd probably use a different style.
Using this template inside footnotes produces an amateurish or mismatched result. Rather than using this template inside footnotes, I suggest simply following one of the popular, established style guidelines, whichever is most appropriate for the field the article belongs to. Style guidelines can be read online or checked out at your local library. They're all pretty easy to use.
I hope that this becomes a moot point someday. A better footnoting interface is coming, or so I once read somewhere. Also, perhaps Wikipedia will create some sort of "reference" namespace—like a giant online card catalog—where all you have to do is link to the entry for that particular reference, and editors will not need to know arcane formatting rules. Until then, keep it simple by following one of the established styles, and keep this template out of foonotes. —Kevin 03:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The citations for Daniel Boone look ideal to what I'm going for. Citing a book 20 times in an article would make using the templates a hassle, so that works. Still, hopefuly that will be a moot point, since Wikipedia's naturally biased towards using web sources (which I understand, but that makes it hard to expand som earticles). Anyway, thanks to those that helped. --Wizardman 03:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest simply following one of the popular, established style guidelines, whichever is most appropriate for the field the article belongs to

I'd rather just use a consistent style for every article. Using this template inside the footnote tags is consistent and easy to use.

A better footnoting interface is coming, or so I once read somewhere.

m:Wikicite? — Omegatron 14:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

French interwiki link

Why not add either [[fr:Modèle:Ouvrage]] (works in general) or [[fr:Modèle:Écrit]] (written works) to the interwiki links? They're the closest equivalents. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 01:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added the latter (it seems more appropriate, since this template refers to books, more specifically than any works in general. If the other one is more appropriate, let me know and I'll switch it. -- Natalya 14:56, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Expansion request: "series" field

I clicked the "edit" button at the template page, said "WOW!" and decided it will be more prudent to post a request here.

Quite a few non-fiction books (on a second thought, fiction ones too) are published as part of a series on a particular topic. My current example I wanted to be covered is:

Edelsbrunner, Herbert, Algorithms in combinatorial geometry. (English), EATCS Monographs on Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 10. Berlin etc.: Springer-Verlag. XV, 423 p.; DM 98.00 (1987). [ISBN 3-540-13722-X]

I would like to use the following syntax here:

series = EATCS Monographs on Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 10.

There are quite different ways to present series, so I'd suggest not to go into a further detalization of the "series" field. Thank you, `'mikka 19:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

A series field would also be helpful for mathematics books, which are often part of a long series. Currently, I use a hack with the edition field, like this:
Rautenberg, Wolfgang (2006). A concise introduction to mathematical logic (second edition, Universitext series ed.). Springer. ISBN 0-387-30294-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |note= ignored (help)
{{cite book | author = Rautenberg, Wolfgang | title = A concise introduction to mathematical logic | edition = second edition, Universitext series| note = With a foreword by Lev Beklemishev | publisher = Springer | year = 2006 | ISBN = 0-387-30294-8}}
Adding a series field to get the same effect without a hack would be a trivial change to make in the template code, but it is protected from casual editing. CMummert 19:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I do it a bit differently (edition = Universitext series, second edition). (BTW, are you aware that Springer aint no Springer no more?) `'mikka 21:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed that this would be useful. OpenURL's book citation format also has an independent series field, incidentally, and points out that the series often has its own ISSN.[8] — Omegatron 21:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

So I made an example at User:CMummert/cite book, here is the code that needs to be added [9] and here are the results [10]. Is there any chance this can be implemented? CMummert · talk 00:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems that nobody has given any reason not to add series field, and several editors have asked for it. I would add it myself, but I can't. As I showed above, the changes to the code are trivial. (Note that the code above doesn't fix the OpenURL part at the bottom template. I'm not so familiar with OpenURL, but leaving the series field out of that part won't hurt anyone in the short term. CMummert · talk 14:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Done, and the documentation has been updated. —Mets501 (talk) 01:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I just noticed that the second example on the template documentation page is volume 1358 in the series "Lecture notes in mathematics". Here is a full cite. CMummert · talk 03:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Mumford, David (1999). The Red Book of Varieties and Schemes. Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1358. Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/b62130. ISBN 354063293X.

{{cite book | last = Mumford | first = David | authorlink = David Mumford | title = The Red Book of Varieties and Schemes | publisher = [[Springer-Verlag]] | series = Lecture notes in mathematics 1358 | year = 1999 | doi = 10.1007/b62130 | isbn = 354063293X }}

I'm not so familiar with OpenURL, but leaving the series field out of that part won't hurt anyone in the short term.

Yeah, don't need to worry about hurting anything. I'll add it. — Omegatron 14:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Here is the list of fields, for future reference. — Omegatron 15:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Booking quoting other books

I have a book that quotes several paragraphs from several older books. I would like to use this information and do not have access to the original books (and thus do not know the page numbers), so how would I cite this exactly? Wickethewok 07:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

One standard is to briefly cite the original book, then write "quoted in", followed by a cite of the book you're using. In the reference list, list only the book you're using. —Kevin 03:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah, much thanks! Have a good one. Wickethewok 07:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Volume

absent a “volume” field, is there a another field to include a volume number? --emerson7 | Talk 20:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Since different volumes are essentially different physical items, I've been formatting as "Foo, volume II: Bar" or "Foo (Volume 2: Bar)". Circeus 17:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
See also {{cite encyclopedia}}, which has a "volume" field, and is appropriate for any book divided in a large number of independent parts.Circeus 17:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Chapter?

I'm not sure if I'm just exceptionally dense, but I can't figure out how to cite a chapter in an edited work (you know Joe Bloggs. 1999. My chapter. Pp 201-274 in Smith and Jones (eds.) A Book. Wikipedia University Press, St Petersburg, Florida). Guettarda 19:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

There's now a "|chapter=" parameter. Before that I just put it in brackets after the pages: "|pages=p. 342 (ch. 31).". Chapter numbers are useful if you have a different print, allowing you to find the cite easier than having to figure out the percentages for prints with more/less pages. -- Jeandré, 2007-01-20t07:32z

Page URL

Could we add a page URL to this template? With Google books it has suddenly become very easy to provide links to the exact page(s) cited. Thanks! Grover cleveland 14:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Just use url or chapterurl. It'll be fine ;-) Circeus 17:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Simple but complete example

It would be very useful to add a link to page with simple but complete example on the top of this page. I have been editing Wikipedia for couple of years, know HTML, dealt with templates and yet, adding just a single book reference took me 20 minutes of frustration trying to figure out what I need to put in and what went wrong.

Something what I could copy and paste and experiment with would be very helpful - I bet I am not the only one lost. Pavel Vozenilek 10:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Citation templates
The basic layout of this template is pretty simple. 90% of the time, only 7 variables are needed (last, first, title, year, location, publisher and ISBN). It just get complicated for weird situations (book that are journal issues, ISBN-less books), and more specific citations.Circeus 20:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I mean mainly combination of {{cite book}}, <ref> and <references/>. I made mistakes like <notes/> and </references>, forgot <ref>, put it in wrong place... What helped me was copying a cite from another article, verbatim and then changing step by step. Pavel Vozenilek 15:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Ooooh! The page that explains the <ref> system is at Wikipedia:Footnotes. The system is quite separate from citation templates. I also have an essay on combinations at User:Circeus/Referencing styles. Circeus 19:41, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The current structure of the cite help is rather confusing to novices and those who use it infrequently. I recommend to add simple example of a complete footnote and that should be enough for majority of uses. Pavel Vozenilek 21:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

example of problem with first/last/url field.

I will try an figure out what the problem is later, for the moment the template is protected, so all I can do is talk about the problem. Can someone take a look? NevilleDNZ 03:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem was that "authorlink" is intended to link to wikipedia articles, not external websites. I fixed it now.Circeus 21:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

reprint question

If I'm citing a book that was reprinted some decades after the original print, which year (original year or reprint year) do I include in the citation? Is there a way to include both? --W.marsh 22:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The facilities to do that are quite limited. It's even worse if you have to note that the author was actually an editor, or if the reprint is also a translation. I usually just format the citation by hand; there is no point in massaging the templates too much beyond what they were designed to do. For a horror show of difficult references, see this article. CMummert · talk 22:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
You can use "origdate" in addition to "date," but I would only advise it if it is really important to note that.Circeus 22:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks both of you... it's not really that important, I was just creating a "further reading" section and one of the books was basically just of historic interest, and had been reprinted years later. I guess giving both years could theoretically make it easier to track down the book though. --W.marsh 23:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
In that case you probably want to give the ISBN of the reprint, and so the origyear would be enough. CMummert · talk 23:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
(resp. to Circeus, edit conflict) The original publication date is extremely important for author-date citation. Imagine the confusion if you came across the following sentence in an article.
According to Nietzsche (2002), "God is dead."
CMummert · talk 23:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Force no italicization in title

Is there any way to force the template to not italicize the book title (or a portion thereof)? E.g. for citing books whose titles are in non-Latin alphabets (especially East Asian languages), using italics makes it almost unreadable. (Alternatively, I guess we could do something similar to what's been done on zhwiki and make separate versions of all the templates). E.g., if I want to cite a foreign book and give an English translation of the title, I'd hope it to look something like:

  • Zhang Chengzhi (1995). 鞍と筆―中国知識人の道とは何か (Saddles and pens: The path of China's intellectuals) (in Japanese). Tokyo: Ohta Books. ISBN 4872332261.

Oddly enough, manually deitalicizing it doesn't seem to work

  • {{cite book|last=Zhang|first=Chengzhi|date=1995|title=''鞍と筆―中国知識人の道とは何か (''Saddles and pens: The path of China's intellectuals'')''|language=Japanese|location=Tokyo|publisher=Ohta Books|ISBN=4872332261}}, gives:
  • Zhang, Chengzhi (1995). 鞍と筆―中国知識人の道とは何か (Saddles and pens: The path of China's intellectuals) (in Japanese). Tokyo: Ohta Books. ISBN 4872332261.

Any suggestions? Cheers, cab 23:33, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The template currently uses <i>...</i> to italicize the titles, so this works:
  • {{cite book|last=Zhang|first=Chengzhi|date=1995|title=</i>鞍と筆―中国知識人の道とは何か (<i>Saddles and pens: The path of China's intellectuals</i>)<i>|language=Japanese|location=Tokyo|publisher=Ohta Books|ISBN=4872332261}}, gives:
  • Zhang, Chengzhi (1995). 鞍と筆―中国知識人の道とは何か (Saddles and pens: The path of China's intellectuals) (in Japanese). Tokyo: Ohta Books. ISBN 4872332261.
But the HTML or wikicode in the title messes up the machine-readable tags. And the chance that future editors will understand the reason for the broken-looking HTML is very low. So it might be better not to use templates in the situation you describe, and just format the citations by hand. CMummert · talk 15:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
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