To clean up some loose ends, I've broken the mold in MLZ and will be introducing new fields and types in the next release, coming up within the next couple of weeks. The changes will go straight into the database schema. That will break database compatibility with official Zotero, but the new version will be fully sync-enabled, both for the new fields and types, and for multilingual field variants. Sync to an official Zotero client will (sort of) work as well.

In the new version, upgrade migration and the jiggery-pokery needed to preserve and extend sync functionality are controlled by a small set of mapping tables. This has lightened things considerably, and I'm open to making further modifications to the schema before the release, if there are specific requests. As a magnet for feedback, I've churned out a set of item type/field tables for the current MLZ dev version with a little help (well, a lot of help) from aurimas' excellent CSL mapping plugin:

http://fbennett.github.com/z2csl/typeMap.xml

Looking forward to the next major Zotero cycle, the core developers might welcome a concrete set of migration and CSL mappings to use as a starting point. So if there is something high on your wish list, feel free to take a look at the tables and ask for changes; I'll be happy to stir in anything specific for which there is rough concensus.

The project now has a home here: http://citationstylist.org/

(Edit: Note that the client and styles will change significantly when the next version goes live. It's a speed bump on the road to stability, but a bump nonetheless.)

That would be great. One thing I might do to help smooth the process is to build the MLZ field tables with highlights on fields not found in official Zotero. That way, we could for easily tell at a glance whether a proposed field has been covered or not.

It would be really good to get a condensed picture of the consensus on next-version field assignments. Apart from anything else, it help me avoid conflicts with my current back-of-the-envelope additions.

Just a simple list of CSL types/varname pairs will be fine for a start. It would be good to have a proposed label for the Zotero UI for each one, too, as that may affect variable names in the Zotero DB.

At present, archival collections cannot be properly included in a bibliography. Several years ago, erazlogo suggested correcting this – and some other more complex citation issues – with the addition of an "archival collection" item type:
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/2981/styling-archival-material/

Style requirements for "Manuscript collections" are provided by CMS 16th, 14.232-242, as well as the US National Archives (NARA) guide "Citing Records in the National Archives of the United States" (http://www.archives.gov/publications/general-info-leaflets/17-citing-records.pdf).

In brief, what is needed according to CMS is
- name of author of the material collected or name of the group of documents
- title of a specific item (if required)
- name of collection
- name of series
- name of depository (archive)
- place (location of depository)
- URL

To this I would suggest adding:

- date range covered by the material (hopefully Z3.1 will be able to handle date ranges!)

NARA has more detailed hierarchies, including file numbers and microfilm numbers, etc.

Here are examples provided by CMS:

14.241 Examples of bibliography entries for manuscript collections

The style of the first six examples below is appropriate if more than one item from a collection is cited in the text or notes. In the second and third examples, commas are added after the initials to avoid misreading. See also 14.233.

Egmont Manuscripts. Phillipps Collection. University of Georgia Library.
House, Edward M., Papers. Yale University Library.
Merriam, Charles E., Papers. University of Chicago Library.
Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Papers. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Strother, French, and Edward Lowry. Undated correspondence. Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, IA.
Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Papers. Alice Belin du Pont files, Pierre S. du Pont Papers. Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Wilmington, DE.

If only one item from a collection has been mentioned in text or in a note and is considered important enough to include in a bibliography, the entry will begin with the item.

Dinkel, Joseph. Description of Louis Agassiz written at the request of Elizabeth Cary Agassiz. Agassiz Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Note especially that quotation marks are not used for generic names in citing archival documents – something which cannot be achieved using the current Document or Manuscript item types.

Also, the previous discussion linked above raised the issues surrounding listing archival collections in a separate section of the bibliography. A longer time line in resolving this more complex issue should not preclude at least being able to correctly list archival collections in the first place.

ap

Please add these item type labels

-Working paper
-White paper
-Newsletter article

Thanks.

Thanks for the lead adamsmith! I think I understand why you're handling the item type labels the way you are (to fit with citation systems). I suppose I'll use tags to do any additional categorization. Tx.

@luis: Quoting adamsmith above:

Please read the first post on the first page of this thread.
Use report for Working Paper and White Paper.

(For white papers of government, Multilingual Zotero (MLZ) adds a "Jurisdiction" field to its Report type.)

The British Universities Film & Video Council has published guidelines for quoting films, tv shows and other of audio-visual content.

In my opinion these recommendations are a bit over the top; from my experience in film studies you rarely see filmographies which are so fine grained (for example, most of the time, you don't give type or duration which are both mandatory here). But I guess these guidelines are quite useful as an orientation. Once Zotero is able to implement these guidelines, most situations/styles should be covered for audio-visual material.

Here are the different types, the elements in italics are mandatory (for explanations of the element see the guidelines)

Film:
Given Title or ‘Clip Title’, Film Title [type, format] Production credit. Production Company/Sponsor/Private, Country of production, year of release. Duration. Start-end timings of extract. [release information, e.g. production company, catalogue number, date of specific edition] or point of access, e.g. archive collection, archive reference, or name of private collection, or original web URL (date of access).

Television:
Given Title or ‘Episode/Clip Title’, Main Programme/Series Title, Series No. [type, format] Production credit. ] Production Company/Sponsor/Private, Country of production, transmission time if known, transmission date, transmission channel. Duration. Start-end timings of extract. [release information, e.g. production company, catalogue number, date of specific edition] or point of access if applicable, e.g. archive collection, archive reference, or name of private collection, or original web URL (date of access).

Radio:
Given Title or ‘Episode/Clip Title’, Main Programme/Series Title [type, format] Production credit. ] Production Company/Sponsor/Private, Country of production, transmission time if known, transmission date, transmission channel. Duration. Start-end timings of extract. [release information, e.g. production company, catalogue number, date of specific edition] or point of access, e.g. archive collection, archive reference, or name of private collection, or original web URL (date of access).

Other audio:
Given Title or ‘Track title’, Main Title [type, format] Production credit. Production Company/Sponsor/Private, Country of production, date of recording if known. Duration. Start-end timings of extract. [release information, e.g. production company, catalogue number, date of specific edition] or point of access, e.g. archive collection, archive reference, or name of private collection, or original web URL (date of access).

New media:
Given Title or ‘Track title’, Main Title [type, format] Production credit. Production Company/ Sponsor/Private, Country of production, date created/uploaded/published. Duration. Start-end timings of extract. [release information, e.g. production company, catalogue number, date of specific edition] or point of access, e.g. original web URL (date of access).

Might be appropriate to change the title of this thread to 4.1+

Both of these are display rather than database issue, so they're a different story from the rest of this thread (though dropping fields wouldn't empty file size in a noticeable way, no).
We're quite interested in improving/cleaning up the display, so that might happen, though not super soon. It will likely take the form of moving unused fields to the bottom or so.

I am very excited that ArchivalCollection Type (https://github.com/ajlyon/zotero-bits/wiki/ArchivalCollectionType) is a proposed development for the new version of Zotero. I am a librarian at a special collections library, and I want to encourage the use of Zotero among my patrons (mostly historian). This development would make Zotero much more powerful for historical research.

One question: Would it be possible to add a field for folder number? Many of our collections have thousands of folders.

Thank you very much.
Amanda

Hi Sebastian -

Now that you say this, I do know this already! I'm sorry, I forgot. The reason I was excited about the folder level was that our finding aids have a new feature: component level IDs. You can pull the metadata from the finding aid at the folder level and then re-purpose it. I thought of Zotero. I'll investigate to see if this also works at the box level.

In all honesty, it's probably best if the researcher can capture both the box and the folder number. The more information the better in terms of allowing future researchers to trace back to the document. The "Loc. in Archive" field is good for this - I'll just have to remind folks to use it for this purpose. Is there any possibility that it could be called "Loc. in Collection?" That might be more transparent.

One other question: Is there an estimated time frame for when the enhancements specific to archival collections will be released?

Is there according to anyone an item type one can use for citing a specific production and performance of for instance a theatre play, music performance and the like? Non of the item types that are there now have fields that cover what I need to put in it seems to me. For instance a theatre play performance would need Author, Play, Date of Play published, scriptwriter, director, performer(s), but also venue, and date of performance. There is no item type that can accommmodate multiple dates and data about both publication and performance of a work. Or am I missing something?