Upgrade StorageError in style "Past and Present" for issue number with no volume
The "Past and Present" style incorrectly omits the issue number. This is particularly ironic since the journal "Past and Present" does not itself use volume numbers, only issue numbers. Thus the correct way to cite a P&P article in P&P is:
Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, ‘Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era’, Past and Present, no. 205 (2009).
but instead what appears is:
Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, ‘Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era’, Past and Present, (2009).
Note that if one puts the issue number in the volume number field, the result is also incorrect:
Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, ‘Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era’, Past and Present, ccv (2009).
Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, ‘Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era’, Past and Present, no. 205 (2009).
but instead what appears is:
Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, ‘Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era’, Past and Present, (2009).
Note that if one puts the issue number in the volume number field, the result is also incorrect:
Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, ‘Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era’, Past and Present, ccv (2009).
For example, another article is properly cited in the journal *Past and Present* as follows:
> Christopher Melchert, ‘Exaggerated Fear in the Early Islamic Renunciant Tradition’, *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*, 3rd ser., xxi, 3 (2011).
But instead, Zotero's "Past and Present" style produces (based on a Zotero entry that includes ISSUE = 3 and SERIES = 3):
> Christopher Melchert, ‘Exaggerated Fear in the Early Islamic Renunciant Tradition’, *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*, xxi (2011).
missing both the Issue and the Series number.
So the problem is clearly that this CSL style ignores both the Series and the Issue numbers. Is there a way to fix that?
PLease clarify what Zotero (CSL) style are you using? Are you asking about the Past and Present style in the Zotero style repository or the appearance of citations to articles that were published in Past and Present when using some other bibliographic style (or both)?
You wrote: "...the journal "Past and Present" does not itself use volume numbers, only issue numbers." This statement is incorrect.
Past and Present has yearly single issue volumes. Each year for the past 10 or more years the journal metadata (and information on the printed page) lists a volume number with an issue number (always "1"). Although frequently, and from the very beginning of this publication in the early 1950s, there are multiple volumes published per year. I have cited articles from this journal but never have used the Past & Present citation style.
Thus, for the 2009 article you mention in your first post [https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtp036], the journal itself lists the bibliographic reference for this article as:
Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era, Past & Present, Volume 205, Issue 1, November 2009, Pages 3–40, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtp036
Zotero imports this 2009 article (as well as the more recent articles I have imported) correctly with 205 in the volume field and 1 in the issue field.
When I create a bibliography record for this item using the Past & Present style from the Zotero repository the result is:
1. Jeffrey Fynn-Paul, ‘Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era’, Past & Present, ccv (2009).
Note that the volume number is converted to Roman numerals. This conversion corresponds to the volume representation in the printed reference lists of articles from this journal.
edited for clarity about the number of volumes published per year
@DWL-SDCA: to be clear, I think this is an instance where the metadata provided by the journal itself does not actually correspond to how the journal is produced in the analog world. That is, although the digital metadata says "volume X, issue no. 1", in the analog world the journal does not use volume numbers at all and is simply called "issue no. X" (where X is the same number as was used for the volume number in the metadata). This is of course not Zotero's fault, and the only thing to do is for the user to edit the entry to be correct.
In any case, I look forward to the fix to the Past & Present CSL, @adamsmith. Thank you!
My reaction / questions arose from my perspective as curator of a literature database, how the volume/issue designations should be recorded in the online database, and experience with another journal "Transportation Research Record" and its previous title "Highway Research Record". My concerns were also related to the changes made by Elsevier a few years ago to designate the multiple issues released each year as volumes (and the designation of some as volume nn, part 1; part 2; or Part 1a, etc.).
Early on this transportation journal published multiple times each year each publication assigned an accumulating issue number. Later the publisher changed the policy and what had been issue numbers retroactively and prospectively became volume numbers. Now, last year, the publisher has changed and with that change the issues are now enumerated with an annual volume number and multiple (weekly for 2018, monthly for 2019) issue numbers. The journal's own style guide has changed through the decades with changes in punctuation to reflect whether 1) the year was treated as the volume number with issue numbers accumulating across years; 2) ignoring the year and only listing the issue number (in parentheses); 3) [in the mid-1990s] converting the former issue numbers to volume designation. The publisher was so serious about this issue-to-volume change that they wrote to me to request that my database change the issue enumeration from the issue field to the volume field.
In the specific case of Past & Present, the publisher approved my database recording of volume/issue assignments to each article from the journal is indicated on the database journal information page and grid:
(https://www.safetylit.org/week/journalpage.php?jid=16059).