Biblioentry markup standards -- identifying the type of entry

[Richard Hamilton <hamilton@xmlpress.net>]

Iâm posting this to the DocBook mailing list, but double posting do DocBook-apps because the discussion started on that list.

Background: Iâve been using bibliomixed for XML Press publications. I would like to move to using biblioentry, so I can cover more than one output style. We primarily use the Chicago Manual of Style as our guide, but I would like to be able to easily use other styles.

My objective is to create (over time) customizations that would take a biblioentry in a consistent format and generate output that conforms to Chicago, APA, and other styles.

As part of that effort, I decided first to look for and create test examples for a variety of cases and begin creating guidelines.

This first issue Iâve uncovered is the question of how to identify what kind of entry an instance is (e.g., book, article, etc.).

I can find no standard method for doing that in DocBook, including the Publisherâs schema..

The ISO690 extension uses the role attribute on the biblioentry element.

Certain types can be guessed at by looking at biblioset (if itâs used) or the pubwork attribute on citetitle (if citetitle is used rather than title).

Both of these apply only if you use those elements. However, there are plenty of examples where biblioset is not needed and would just add complexity. And citetitle seems not to be the best choice for expressing a title in this context (especially if you want to separate out a subtitle).

So, am I missing something here, or is there no standard method for defining the type of a biblioentry?

If there isnât an established method, does anyone have any ideas on how best to do this?

Best regards,
Dick Hamilton 
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