# abbreviation lists

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [September 23, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772 "2009-09-23T00:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/1 "2009-09-23T00:00:00Z")

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So what to do about this?

[http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8874/getting-journal-abbreviations-from-a-repository/](http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8874/getting-journal-abbreviations-from-a-repository/)

Robert and Dan, in particular, any thoughts?

I’m fine with the idea of adding an abbreviation-list attribute to the  
root whose value is a URI, But am not so sure about going further than  
that. It’s just not clear to me it should be the job of the CSL  
processor to actually do this substitution.

If it should be, then someone needs to write the detailed spec  
language to explain how this should work, and also the XML schema  
fragment for the abbreviations\* (since CSL is an XML language  
fundamentally).

Bruce

- … which might be as simple as:

start = abbreviationSet

abbreviationSet =  
element abbreviationSet {  
element abbreviation {  
attribute match { text },  
attribute substitute { text }  
}  
}

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**Author:** ![Dan\_Stillman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dan\_Stillman](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Dan_Stillman)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 9:39am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/2 "2009-09-23T09:39:14Z")

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I already commented on that thread  
([http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8874/getting-journal-abbreviations-from-a-repository/#Item\_13](http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8874/getting-journal-abbreviations-from-a-repository/#Item_13))  
and suggested two options for providing the processor with abbreviations  
based on a URI defined in the style. I have no preference between the  
two. If no one thinks Option 2 is necessary, then all we need is an  
attribute for the URI (and a format for the abbreviation lists, which is  
being discussed on that thread).

- Dan

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/3 "2009-12-09T01:49:10Z")

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Anyone remember what did we decided about this?

[http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8278/text-substitution/](http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8278/text-substitution/)

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Frank\_Bennett](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/frank_bennett/32/198_2.png) [@Frank\_Bennett](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Frank_Bennett)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 4:46am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/4 "2009-12-09T04:46:24Z")

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> Anyone remember what did we decided about this?
> 
> [http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8278/text-substitution/](http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8278/text-substitution/)

Nothing was decided collectively, as far as I know. Here’s what I’ve  
done in citeproc-js:

[gsl-nagoya-u.net&nbsp;-&nbsp;This website is for sale!&nbsp;-&nbsp;gsl nagoya u Resources and Information.](http://gsl-nagoya-u.net/http/pub/citeproc-doc.html#journal-abbreviation-lists)

This infrastructure could be tied to a proper CSL option, and I  
suppose it should be. Failing that, though, it will permit the  
calling application to supply an arbitrary abbreviation list. My idea  
was that having the functionality in there would at least help  
encourage the preparation of the necessary lists.

---

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/5 "2009-12-09T21:33:31Z")

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Yes, though am not sure I like the of the list being in JS.

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Frank\_Bennett](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/frank_bennett/32/198_2.png) [@Frank\_Bennett](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Frank_Bennett)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/6 "2009-12-09T21:38:40Z")

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> > > Anyone remember what did we decided about this?
> > > 
> > > [http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8278/text-substitution/](http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8278/text-substitution/)
> > 
> > Nothing was decided collectively, as far as I know. Here’s what I’ve  
> > done in citeproc-js:
> > 
> > [gsl-nagoya-u.net&nbsp;-&nbsp;This website is for sale!&nbsp;-&nbsp;gsl nagoya u Resources and Information.](http://gsl-nagoya-u.net/http/pub/citeproc-doc.html#journal-abbreviation-lists)
> > 
> > This infrastructure could be tied to a proper CSL option, and I  
> > suppose it should be. Failing that, though, it will permit the  
> > calling application to supply an arbitrary abbreviation list. My idea  
> > was that having the functionality in there would at least help  
> > encourage the preparation of the necessary lists.
> 
> Yes, though am not sure I like the of the list being in JS.

No worries. it’s totally provisional. If the lists arrive in XML, I  
can add a little conversion function and adjust the docs.

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**Author:** ![Sebastian\_Karcher](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/sebastian_karcher/32/176_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Karcher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Sebastian_Karcher)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 11:44am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/7 "2012-12-31T11:44:11Z")

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Dear all,  
Rintze and I are planning to include abbreviations lists in JSON format on  
a repository in the citation-style-language github. These would work with  
citeproc-js and presumably other implementations can easily adjusted to  
take advantage of them, too.  
For Zotero, the current way to use these would be through Frank’s  
abbreviation plugin, for Mendeley I believe there is a working hack, linked  
to from here;  
[http://feedback.mendeley.com/forums/4941-general/suggestions/83173-journal-abbreviations?page=2&per\_page=20](http://feedback.mendeley.com/forums/4941-general/suggestions/83173-journal-abbreviations?page=2&per_page=20)(but  
with a non-working link…)

IIRC, Mendeley has a couple of lists on dropbox linked to from that thread.  
Could we use those? Are any of you aware of any licensing issues? I believe  
the NLM published list is explicitly public domain, how about others like  
ISO or Chemical Abstracts?

Happy new year!  
Sebastian–  
Sebastian Karcher  
Ph.D. Candidate  
Department of Political Science  
Northwestern University

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**Author:** ![Frank\_Bennett](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/frank_bennett/32/198_2.png) [@Frank\_Bennett](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Frank_Bennett)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 12:50pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/8 "2012-12-31T12:50:11Z")

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This is great to see. Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Robert\_Knight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@Robert\_Knight](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Robert_Knight)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/9 "2012-12-31T13:15:44Z")

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Hello,

> Rintze and I are planning to include abbreviations lists in JSON format on a repository in the citation-style-language github.

Thank-you for doing this. It is much appreciated. Is this a simple  
(full name → abbreviation) mapping or do you plan to include any  
other information?

> IIRC, Mendeley has a couple of lists on dropbox linked to from that thread. Could we use those? Are any of you aware of any licensing issues?

I’m afraid I haven’t looked into the provenance/licensing of those  
lists. I suspect the users who provided them didn’t either. In the  
case of CAS, I believe these abbreviations are derived automatically  
from the list of word mappings at  
[CAS Standard Abbreviations & Acronyms](http://www.cas.org/content/cas-standard-abbreviations#listinga) , in  
turn many of those are derived from the ISSN title word abbreviation  
list (see [Home - Journal Abbreviations - LibGuides at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign](http://www.library.illinois.edu/biotech/j-abbrev.html))

> (but with a non-working link…)

Will look into this.

Regards,  
Rob.

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**Author:** ![Sebastian\_Karcher](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/sebastian_karcher/32/176_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Karcher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Sebastian_Karcher)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/10 "2012-12-31T14:05:33Z")

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Thanks Rob,  
currently we’re just planning title–\>abbreviations, which seems by far the  
most important issue to solve, though as you know, citeproc-js is already  
able to process more complex things like abbreviating institutions etc.,  
which Frank uses in his MLZ. There are some issues with this that will need  
fine-tuning as we implement this more broadly, e.g. dealing with articles,  
capitalization etc. - but that still seems like the easiest way to go.

Thanks for the info on CAS etc. - those lists sound rather proprietary, as  
does ISSN and journalseek, both of whom sell their data. IANAL, but it  
seems to me like we should be able to derive the lists ourselves, but we’d  
need a comprehensive list of journal names to start from.

SebastianOn Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Robert Knight \<@Robert\_Knight\>wrote:

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**Author:** ![Rintze\_Zelle](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/rintze_zelle/32/175_2.png) [@Rintze\_Zelle](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Rintze_Zelle)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/abbreviation-lists/772/11 "2013-01-01T02:02:13Z")

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There is now a repo at [https://github.com/citation-style-language/abbreviations](https://github.com/citation-style-language/abbreviations)

Rintze