Feature Request: Cleanly citing Albums and Individual Songs

S. Benjamin Holsteen
I love Zotero so much, it saved me hours of formatting on my recent M.Litt course. Having said that, I am about to begin my PhD research on the work of Nick Cave, who over 40 years has built up quite the discography. Having an easy way to add album and song info to Zotero which will then format correctly in Chicago style for notes and bibliography would be amazing and I hope it's a feature that might be added at some point soon. I've mentioned this once before, nearly two years ago (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/71870/quoting-songs-in-zotero#latest), but that thread seems dead in the water, so I thought I'd throw it out there once again.

Keep up the incredible work!

Cheers,

Ben
  • bwiernik
    See here https://www.zotero.org/groups/2205533/test_items_library/collections/MR2N872S/items/FHC62BF9/item-details for a track on an album

    And here https://www.zotero.org/groups/2205533/test_items_library/collections/MR2N872S/items/HMSNI352/item-details for a full album
  • S. Benjamin Holsteen
    @bwiernik Thank you. This works very well for albums—and for songs in APA format (with the exception of not putting "" around the Song Title and saying the song is "in" rather than "on" the album). Sadly, the formatting is wrong in Chicago, which is what I am using. It seems like it shouldn't be that difficult (admittedly, this is an assumption based on zero knowledge of coding, so... I actually have no idea what I'm talking about...) to build a different container type suited to Albums and Songs specifically with it's own note and bibliography formatting. Having said all of that, it's just a feature request... if it's not easy (possible?), then I get it. Still an incredible tool for all of my print material citation needs. :)
  • bwiernik
    edited March 11, 2022
    APA style does not put quotes around song titles. They are cited the same way as book chapters.

    “On” will be part of an upcoming update to the style

    If you give a specific example of what is wrong with Chicago, the style can be updated. There isn’t any conceptual difference between a chapter-book relationship and a track-album relationship, so there isn’t a need for more style components. The Chicago style just hasn’t yet been written to expect container titles for all different types of items.
  • dpearson2699
    Hello, just a question regarding if this is possible with Zotero. I've followed the instructions provided by @bwiernik for how to get the album of the track correctly cited, but I have another request regarding citing song lyrics. According to MLA 9 this is how it's supposed to be done:

    Use the following structure to cite written song lyrics in MLA 9:

    Songwriter’s Last Name, First Name. Lyrics to “Title of the Song.” Names of other contributors, Album’s Publisher, Year of publication. Name of Website (italic), URL.

    Here’s how the above example would be cited in MLA 9:

    Lennon, John. Lyrics to “Imagine.” Performed by John Lennon, Ascot Sound Studios, 1971. Genius (italic), genius.com/John-lennon-imagine-lyrics.

    Not sure how to go about doing this. Any suggestions?
  • les_h
    Hi, I'd like to second the OP's request. The provided work around by @bwiernik does not work with Harvard format.

    It's also not a solution I can reasonably recommend to undergrad music students.
  • damnation
    As mentioned by bwiernik above, very few styles have this built in.
    If you let us know which of the 1000 Harvard styles you're using and how a reference should be formatted according to the style guidelines, we can have a look.
  • les_h
    I appreciate this offer. It's https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/harvard-university-of-kent.csl which *should* support container title, but which is not working for me. I'm on Zotero 6.0.26 for linux.


    Band (Year) /Song title/, Album Title. [MEDIA] Location: Record Company. Available at: URL [Accessed: Access Date].

    Where MEDIA could be CD, CASSETTE, ONLINE etc and // meaning italics)

    eg:

    Milder, L. (2001). /Wherever You Go/, Celebrate Kids: Kids' Kosher Cuts. [CD] Sweet Louise Music.

    I do feel like it would improve the UX for students if the container title was in the regular UI for audio recording. It's still very common for musical recordings to be released as part of an album. Getting first year students to use a reference tool at all is already a challenge without having to show them work arounds.

    Again, thanks for your help.
Sign In or Register to comment.