multibib-like functionality

CSL Development
1

So I don’t see this as a CSL style issue, but it might be worth
raising, because it could be related to a possible CSL API.

Zotero users have periodically requested functionality similar to what
the bibtex multibib package offers: that is, being able to have
multi-sectional bibliographies. Possible examples I’ve seen include:

  • primary and secondary sources
  • legal cases and everything else
  • discographies vs. everything else

I would very much like to see this as well.

So you need a way to:

  1. set the heading for these sections
  2. to define which references get printed where

To me, the cleanest, most flexible, way to do this is via some sort of
tag filtering, completely independently of CSL. For example, some way
to say either a source or a reference belongs to the group "primary"
and then being able to place a bibliography that prints all items
within that group.

In any case, I’d ideally like a solution that is the same conceptually
whether we’re talking GUI apps like Zotero and Mendeley, or text-based
formats like markdown (pandoc).

Any thoughts?

Bruce

2

Is it possible to completely separate the organization of multi-section
bibliographies from the CSL style? E.g., is it common for the different
sections to have different sorting criteria (in which case you’d have to add
support for this in CSL)?

Rintze

3

I doubt it, but that’s a good question.

Aside from actual bibliographies, another place to check is the
biblatex docs to see if they felt any need to allow for this.

Bruce

4

So I don’t see this as a CSL style issue, but it might be worth
raising, because it could be related to a possible CSL API.

Zotero users have periodically requested functionality similar to what
the bibtex multibib package offers: that is, being able to have
multi-sectional bibliographies. Possible examples I’ve seen include:

  • primary and secondary sources
  • legal cases and everything else
  • discographies vs. everything else

I would very much like to see this as well.

So you need a way to:

  1. set the heading for these sections
  2. to define which references get printed where

Is (2) alone sufficient? It would be awkward to require modifications
to the style or the locale in order to change a bibliography heading.

5

Definitely agree.

Bruce