Dates of a multivolume work and individual volume

CSL Usage
1

When citing a book in a multivolume set, some styles ask for both the date of the full run and the date of the cited volume. For example, in Chicago:

Armstrong, Tenisha, ed. 2014. To Save the Soul of America, January 1961–August 1962. Vol. 7 of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Clayborne Carson. University of California Press, 1992–.

In MHRA:

Heinrich Böll: Werke, ed. by Árpád Bernáth and others, Kölner Ausgabe, 27 vols (Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 2002–10), xx, 1977–79, ed. by Jochen Schubert (2009), pp. 24–25.

I am thinking of bending the available-date variable (which is only used in two CSL styles) to the purpose of providing the publication dates for the collection. Does anyone see a better way?

2

@bwiernik The container date variable would have worked for this, removed after the discussion at https://github.com/citation-style-language/csl-evolution/issues/12. Since the processors presumably still support this variable, would it be difficult to bring it back?

3

We were pretty sure container was an error to begin with considering it wasn’t container-date.

For this case, collection-date seems like it would be needed. We can add that—we are planning to do a 1.0.3 update with new variables and terms like 1.0.2. Can you compile a list and add here Terms and variables 1.0.3 · Issue #438 · citation-style-language/schema · GitHub

1 Like
4

I agree that collection-date might be needed, but both container-date and volume-date could also be required, with container-date probably the most urgent.

The example of a chapter in a volume in a multivolume work in a series (below) shows that there are at least four levels of titles that could be involved (title, volume-title, container-title, and collection-title), each of which might need to be accompanied by a matching date field. (CSL part-title is yet another title variable that might potentially need a corresponding date variable as well.)

(Example from the biblatex manual, slightly modified, converted to CSL-YAML by pandoc:)

---
references:
- id: stage
  type: chapter
  author:
  - family: Expert
    given: Edward
  container-author:
  - family: Shakespeare
    given: William
  editor:
  - family: Bookmaker
    given: Bernard
  issued: 1999
  title: Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Stage
  volume-title: Tragedies
  container-title: Collected Works
  collection-title: Oxbridge Classical Texts
  volume: 1
  page: 7-49
  language: en
---

Given that it is unlikely for the title date and volume-title date to differ (since being in the same volume implies they are published simultaneously), and considering that I cannot remember any indications in CMOS 17e (I have not yet reviewed the 18e) or other style guides suggesting that dates for a series (collection-title) should ever be provided, it seems that the most urgently needed new date variable is container-date. If the various citeprocs still contain code for container, I would be inclined to use this for the time being, in anticipation of the introduction of container-date.

Interestingly enough, biblatex does have a similar set of title fields (title, booktitle, maintitle, series) but no dedicated date fields for any of these levels except for date itself. In particular, the biblatex-chicago manual and its example files do not mention or contain examples where the date of the full run and the date of the cited volume differ, so it seems biblatex currently cannot deal with this problem either.

5

I’m not really understanding that reference’s structure — what exactly is “Collected Works” here — and I can’t find that book on a publisher website.

It’s a little confusing to me to think about a container being published across multiple dates versus a collection. Do you have another example of this, maybe from publisher metadata?

6

A multi-volume work (like Shakespeare’s collected works here) is a container, not a collection, I think (i.e. agreeing w Nick on this)

Sebastian

7

In case it’s not obvious, there is no container-title in either of the examples I gave (the Chicago citation is from 14.21 in the 18th edition). Hence collection-date seems an appropriate name to me, but I do not have strong feelings about it.

8

The following table may clarify things further. (I apologize for not having secured access to CMOS 18e yet, but I believe the principles we’re discussing here haven’t changed much from the 17e.)

book, sv/mv vol. in mvbook 1 vol. in mvbook 2 chapter in svbook chapter in mvbook
CSL type book book book chapter chapter
title of chapter – – – title title
title of volume – volume-title title – volume-title
title of book (sv/mv) title title container-title container-title container-title
title of series collection-title collection-title collection-title collection-title collection-title
CMOS 17e mv: 14.117 14.118–9 14.118–9 14.107 14.120

sv: single-volume, svbook: single-volume book
mv: multi-volume, mvbook: multi-volume book

The table illustrates which variables can be used for the different title levels of various types of single or multi-volume books and chapters within such books. It demonstrates that within the CSL framework, not one but two combinations of variables are suitable for the case of volumes in multi-volume books. Additionally, it shows that collection-title is relatively independent of the others.

The columns ‘vol. in mvbook 1’ and ‘vol. in mvbook 2’ illustrate two different methods of representing the two levels of titles involved. If title is considered the one that is emphasised relative to the other, this distinction somewhat mirrors those made in CMOS 17e, 14.119 (also 14.121 and 14.122).

Examining the Armstrong and Böll entries from https://www.zotero.org/groups/2205533/test_items_library/collections/5V67EPX3 reveals that they use title and volume-title as in my ‘vol. in mvbook 1’ column (and not title and container-title as in my ‘vol. in mvbook 2’ column).

On the other hand, Euripides, Orestes (from the same Zotero group) has title, container-title and collection-title, matching my ‘vol. in mvbook 2’ …

It would seem that either ‘vol. in mvbook 1’ or ‘vol. in mvbook 2’ could, in principle, be used for coding CSL styles. If both are implemented, it would be possible to generate either of the two different versions outlined in CMOS 17e, section 14.119, in the formatted output, depending on the variables included in the user’s data. However, I am uncertain whether the effort of implementing both versions in CSL style files would be justified. Nevertheless, if CSL styles were limited to implementing only one of these versions, users should be clearly informed which one is supported and which variables they should use in their Zotero or CSL-JSON data.

Regarding the handling of ‘chapter in mvbook’, there seems to be only one possible option, which is to use container-title for the title of the multi-volume book. This led me to consider that container-date might be the most useful new date variable. I had assumed that for a volume within a multi-volume book, the ‘vol. in mvbook 2’ option would be the most straightforward choice. However, upon designing the table, I recognized that this is not the sole option and that ‘vol. in mvbook 1’ can be expected to work just as well.

If ‘vol. in mvbook 1’ remains the preferred approach, we are left with the question of which date variable would be most appropriate in this context. Should we use container-date regardless? Or would it be more sensible to introduce volume-date for this case?

I believe that collection-date would not be a good choice. If used at all, it should be reserved for specifying the date(s) associated with collection-title, not with any of the other title variables discussed here.

In particular, collection-title (and a possible collection-date variable) should not be confounded with container-title (and a possible container-date variable). Within the context of CSL, a multi-volume title, as defined by CMOS, is either a title or a container-title, whereas a series title, also as defined by CMOS, is a collection-title.

9

This is a helpful table. There is also the option for a book-length work within a (potentially multivolume) book, CMOS 14.11 (14.109 in the 17th edition).

The question is also whether any name types need to be added to fit different levels: while collection-editor sounds like it should be specifically for collection-title, as opposed to container-title, in practice it is used mostly for editors of multivolume works. CMOS 14.26, ‘Series or multivolume work?’ addresses this ambiguity:

Certain types of series may lend themselves to being cited as a whole. In such cases, the series may be treated as a multivolume work, with the title of the series in italics.

  • Boyer, John W., and Julius Kirshner, eds. Readings in Western Civilization. 9 vols. University of Chicago Press, 1986–87.
  • Grene, David, and Richmond Lattimore, eds. The Complete Greek Tragedies. 3rd ed., edited by Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most. 9 vols. (unnumbered). University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Usually, however, it is preferable to cite individual titles in the series, as described in 14.25; the series title then appears in roman.

  • Cochrane, Eric, Charles M. Gray, and Mark A. Kishlansky, eds. Early Modern Europe: Crisis of Authority. Readings in Western Civilization, edited by John W. Boyer and Julius Kirshner, vol. 6. University of Chicago Press, 1987.
  • Euripides. Orestes. Translated by William Arrowsmith. In Euripides IV, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. 3rd ed., edited by Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most. The Complete Greek Tragedies. University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Euripides IV is a little strange because the volume number is attached to the title. A more typical example is in 14.24:

  • Donne, John. The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne. Edited by Gary A. Stringer and Jeffrey S. Johnson. Vol. 6, The “Anniversaries” and the “Epicedes and Obsequies,” edited by Gary A. Stringer and Ted-Larry Pebworth. Indiana University Press, 1995.

Both Donne and the Readings in Western Civilization examples above are achievable with collection-editor by checking for the existence of volume, volume-title, and number-of-volumes. This works in practice because there are few instances where one would wish to cite the editor of a series, and Chicago discourages writers from doing so in 14.25: ‘The name of the series editor is usually omitted.’

Currently, collection-editor and container-author are the only variables that attempt to distinguish between contributors to different title levels. As the Euripides IV example demonstrates, there are circumstances in which it could be useful to have a title-level editor/translator, and there might be others, but these would add complexity.