Manuscript fields

funkypeanut

Are there currently any plans to update the fields associated with the manuscript item type? I've done a search in documentation and the forums, and the most recent information I could find was from 2009.

Specifically, I would like to see the volume field added to manuscripts. I work extensively with archival material, and sometimes multivolume manuscripts have been split up, and the volumes will have radically different shelfmarks or even be in separate archives, often even in separate countries.

Also, a "collection" field would be useful for the manuscript item type. Some archives have divisions, which I have been putting in the Loc. in Archive field, but then have collections within those divisions.

adamsmith

We'll very likely be adding a collection field for archival information -- no specific ETA, but likely in Zotero 5.1 (5 is going to put the structure in place to allow that, 5.1 is going to implement it).

Volume, though, I'm not entirely convinced. What would be an example citation, say, in Chicago style for such a manuscript?

funkypeanut

Thanks for answering so quickly. Here's an example of a two-volume manuscript with different shelfmarks for the separate volumes:

Paris, Matthew, "Chronica maior," v. 1. Cambridge.Corpus Christi College, MS 26.

Paris, Matthew, "Chronica maior," v. 2. Cambridge. Corpus Christi College, MS 16.

A shelfmark field would be useful, too, because in order to get the division, collection and shelfmark all to show up in bibliographies generated by Zotero, I have to put them all in the Loc. in Archive field, and then they end up in the wrong order in the final citation because in Chicago those three items aren't in sequence, and I have to go back and fix it manually. And, yes, in my field the shelfmark is a necessary part of the citation.

adamsmith

OK, we can see about the volume. Problem is that adding more and more field to item types has real GUI/usability costs at some point, so there's a limit to adding highly unusual fields. The fact that it's used in other item types is a plus, though, so might happen.

As for the shelfmark: the way I imagine this to work is that you should be able to describe any item in an archive by the name of the archive, the collection, and the location in the archive.
Once we have a collection variable, you'd just put the shelfmark in Loc. in Archive.
In standard Chicago Note format you'd then have
... Loc. in Archive, Collection, Archive.
e.g.
...MS 228, Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.
using one of the examples in CMoS 14.240

I might be missing what you mean by "division" here (it's not a term I'm familiar with referring to archival sources), but couldn't you pack that either with Archive or with Collection if it's another field that needs inclusion?