# multibib design question

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/multibib-design-question/34>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [January 21, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/multibib-design-question/34 "2005-01-21T00:35:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/multibib-design-question/34/1 "2005-01-21T00:35:19Z")

</div>

I’d like CiteProc to have a facility like the La/BibTeX package  
multibib, which allows you to have more than one bib group. For  
example, this:

\documentclass{article}  
\usepackage{multibib}  
\newcites{ltex}{\TeX\ and \LaTeX\ References}  
\begin{document}

References to the \TeX book \citeltex{Knuth:1991} and to Lamport’s  
\LaTeX\ book, which appears only in the  
references\nociteltex{Lamport:1994}. Finally a cite to a Postscript  
tutorial \cite{Adobe:1985}.

\bibliographystyleltex{alpha}  
\bibliographyltex{lit}

\renewcommand{\refname}{Postscript References}  
\bibliographystyle{plain}  
\bibliography{lit}  
\end{document}

… results in two groups.

In my experience, I might have a group that represents archival  
documents, or legal documents, and then a main group.

The question is, how should this be designed? Originally, I had it in  
the CSL schema, such that it was basically genre-based, and the user  
would not need to explicitly code for it in the document. The multibib  
approach is quite different, which would suggest:

a) the citation coding should support a group attribute  
b) if a user was authoring in, say, OOo, they’d explicit mark each  
citation as part of a group.

Each has trade-offs.

Thoughts?

Bruce

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:45pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/multibib-design-question/34/2 "2005-01-21T13:45:32Z")

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So, here’s what I had earlier in CSL:

```
 <bibliography author-as-sort-order="first-author">
   <group>
<heading>Legal Documents</heading>
<reftype name="legal case" inherit-from="article"/>
<reftype name="bill" inherit-from="article"/>
   </group>

```

I’m getting rid of inheritance I think, because it will add complexity  
with unclear benefit.

Then citations could be optionally ?

Of course, that attribute isn’t supported in DocBook, but you get the  
idea.

How would you envision a GUI?

Bruce