Author name order in citations

nathan.hopson

I write in English on Japanese history. When author names are given in full, I can't have the order reversed. Surnames come first, and Japanese order must be maintained. How can I edit Zotero's settings to make this happen?

For example:
"Hara, Katsurō" must be cited as either "Hara" or "Hara Katsurō," but NEVER "Katsurō Hara," which is the default full name citation in Zotero.

Tips, hints, etc. would be appreciated. Thanks!

adamsmith

this is definitely addressed in the experimental multilingual Zotero:
http://gsl-nagoya-u.net/http/pub/zotero-multilingual-overview.html

Frank Bennett would know if this can be addressed with regular Zotero, but I doubt it.

nathan.hopson

Thanks.

How stable is multilingual Zotero? I'm writing my dissertation now, and can't really take any risks with Alpha-quality software. I'd consider Beta versions of something as fundamental as Zotero, but it makes me nervous.

adamsmith

My sense is that it's quite stable, especially with regards to data and documents - I know that a number of people are using it for serious projects - maybe Frank or ajlyon or so could comment, I really don't know much about that.

ajlyon

I'm using it on a regular basis, and it works quite well. The data layer is solid, and the problems have been limited just to the occasional UI glitch.

fbennett

Nathan,

Caution is always good. I haven't heard any reports of data corruption with multilingual, and there are people out there who have pushed it pretty hard. The extensions are non-intrusive -- the database layout is the same as that in Zotero 2.1, with some extra storage containers on the side for multilingual data. That said, I'm chasing the Zotero trunk in the code, so if you do use it, you'll want be particularly careful to keep regular backups of your data, just in case.

Probably the main concern with using the multilingual branch is loss of support from Zotero Central. It's not an official release, so you (we) can't expect the core developers to respond to support queries. (That's not a sign of rejection or anything: it's normal practice, to avoid distractions and confusion in the main line of development.)

If you opt not to use the multilingual branch, the closest you can come to proper handling of transliterated Asian names is single-field entry. That allows you to force the name order, but a style's short form / long form formatting magic will cease to work on those names.