# Zotero place, series and seriesTitle fields

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/zotero-place-series-and-seriestitle-fields/864>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [July 4, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/zotero-place-series-and-seriestitle-fields/864 "2010-07-04T23:41:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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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:** [July 4, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/zotero-place-series-and-seriestitle-fields/864/1 "2010-07-04T23:41:13Z")

</div>

In the interest of simplicity, and with a view to possible data  
exchange strategies, it seems to me that applications should adopt a  
one-to-one mapping between their own native fields and CSL variables,  
within any given item type. There are a couple of spots (described  
below) where Zotero currently uses one-to-many or many-to-one  
mappings, and I’m wondering how hairy it would be to get Zotero to  
move to a pattern of uniform one-to-one mappings for Z-to-CSL  
assignments (again, within each item type).

I’m thinking that this is something that would benefit CSL, as well,  
by assuring that styles will be truly portable between different  
systems that use CSL for rendering.

Here are the two problem cases:\*\*\*\*  
“place” -\> event-place and publisher-place

* * *

The “place” field in Zotero maps to both event-place and  
publisher-place in CSL. In style design, the dual assignment means  
that a style for use with Zotero must use only one of these variables.  
I’m not sure what Bibo does with these two “places”, but if CSL needs  
to discriminate between them, I assume that Bibo and Zotero should do.  
(If Bibo has only “place”, and CSL doesn’t need to discriminate them,  
then perhaps they should be collapsed into a single variable in a  
future CSL release.)

* * *

“series” and “seriesTitle” to collection-title

* * *

The story behind this one is is rather complicated, but the short  
recommendation is that “series” and “seriesTitle” be merged into one  
variable on Zotero-side (with a non-rendering variable to hold  
overflow from entries where both are present). First, here’s a bit of  
history:

Both “series” and “seriesTitle” were introduced into the DB schema  
four years ago, back in the Scholar days, with svn #476. At that  
time, CSL rendered only “seriesTitle”:

[https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/trunk/schema.sql?rev=476](https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/trunk/schema.sql?rev=476)  
[https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/trunk/chrome/chromeFiles/content/scholar/xpcom/cite.js?rev=474](https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/trunk/chrome/chromeFiles/content/scholar/xpcom/cite.js?rev=474)

A year later, after the Zotero launch, “series” was adopted as a  
fallback for “seriesTitle”, and that remains the case today:

[https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/cite.js?rev=1291](https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/cite.js?rev=1291)

The fallback is significant for the journalArticle (article-journal)  
item type, which accepts both values in the UI:

[http://gsl-nagoya-u.net/http/pub/csl-fields/journalArticle.html](http://gsl-nagoya-u.net/http/pub/csl-fields/journalArticle.html)

The mappings picture is complicated, with the assignment varying  
between item types – and with Zotero “book” (which uses CSL book)  
mapping collection-title from “series”, and Zotero “computerProgram”  
(which also uses CSL book) mapping the same variable from  
"seriesTitle". It’s kinda hard to follow.

The full list of assignments is as follows:

* * *

## series

book (book)  
bookSection (chapter)  
dictionaryEntry (chapter)  
encyclopediaArticle (chapter)  
journalArticle (article-journal)

* * *

## seriesTitle

audioRecording (song)  
computerProgram (book)

- journalArticle (article-journal)  
map (map)  
podcast (song)  
report (report)  
videoRecording (motion\_picture)

It seems to me that using a single variable on Zotero-side (one of  
"series" or “seriesTitle”, but not both) would make things much  
simpler.

Frank

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [July 4, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/zotero-place-series-and-seriestitle-fields/864/2 "2010-07-04T23:55:31Z")

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…

> Here are the two problem cases:
> 
> * * *
> 
> “place” → event-place and publisher-place
> 
> * * *
> 
> The “place” field in Zotero maps to both event-place and  
> publisher-place in CSL. In style design, the dual assignment means  
> that a style for use with Zotero must use only one of these variables.  
> I’m not sure what Bibo does with these two “places”, but if CSL needs  
> to discriminate between them, I assume that Bibo and Zotero should do.  
> (If Bibo has only “place”, and CSL doesn’t need to discriminate them,  
> then perhaps they should be collapsed into a single variable in a  
> future CSL release.)

The BIBO modeling is richer and more complex than either CSL or  
Zotero. So there “place” characteristics are a property of a related  
resource (say a publisher, or an event). CSL thus flattens that into  
event-place and publisher-place (the hyphen in the CSL variable names  
typically represent a relation).

In any case, I definitely agree with your suggestions (and that we  
also need to talk about types).

Bruce