ISBN not showing up in bibliographies

ecabral

Hi!

I've been using Zotero Standalone and experimenting with different types of styles, but regardless of the style I pick, the ISBN field is never displayed. As a matter of fact, the record below shows 2 dots after the date, the later of which should be preceded by the ISBN:

CABRAL, A. [depoimento]. In: Encuesta mundial sobre la lengua y la cultura gallegas y otras áreas conflictivas: Cataluña, Puerto Rico, etc. Arealonga. Madrid: Akal Editor, 1974. .


Any idea what could be wrong? I am using the ISBN field in Zotero. Eg, for the record above the value is 9788473390255.

Thanks in advance for your help!

adamsmith

Very few styles print the ISBN - this isn't a common part of bibliographies in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Have you tried the ISO 690 style - that does have the ISBN?

ecabral

That's a surprise! No other element in a book description contains as much data as the ISBN. The easiest and most error-proof way of looking up any book in a catalogue, etc, is by using the ISBN, so I'd expect it to be of mandatory inclusion in any bibliography.

So, I checked ISO 690, but there's no version in my locale. Moreover, the style is very different from the one I'm currently using: 'Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT)'.

2 questions:

1. why the space+dot before the date in the citation I referenced before:

Arealonga. Madrid: Akal Editor, 1974. .


2. The 'Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT)' style does contain a reference to ISBN within the XML (the comment below reads: "show ISBN"):









Why isn't it getting displayed?

Thanks!

ecabral

The XML excerpt got cut... 2nd try:

`
<!--Mostra a ISBN-->
<macro name="ISBN">
<group>
<text variable="ISBN" prefix="ISBN "/>
</group>
</macro>

`

adamsmith

If you think this should be in the ABNT style, search and post to one of the existing threads on ABNT. Same for other issues with the style.
The reason the style doesn't print the ISBN is that the macro you paste isn't actually called in the bibliography.

ecabral

Thanks! I missed that :)

I've now copy/pasted the code inside the bibliography element by using the CSL Editor and bingo, managed to get the ISBN displayed!

Then, I copied the code into a text file, saved it with a .csl extension per http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step in order to upload it to Zotero (Preferences > Cite > Styles > +), but I'm getting this error:

" file.csl does not appear to be a valid style file"

What next?

Thanks a lot for your help so far!

adamsmith

you're probably saving it in rich text format.
Use the online editor:
http://steveridout.com/csl/visualEditor/
it automatically saves in the right format.

ecabral

Awesome tool! Figured it out!

Thanks so much for the help!