Computer programs stored as documents in Zotero show no date

mmoran · February 20, 2009

One of the document types in Zotero is "computer program". I have entered a computer program as an entry in Zotero. However, when I produce the bibliographic entry, using APA style, it does not show a date (n.d. => no date). I have used the "version" field to store a 4-digit date (2004), but even that does not appear as the date. For example,

Smith, R. (n.d.). INTEGRATE.FOR. U.S. Department of Transportation. Retrieved February 20, 2009, .

hammett · April 26, 2009

I have a similar problem with 1.5b2, there is no date field and the version number isn't displayed in the bibliography.

hammett · April 27, 2009

Can't even edit the bibliography to add in the year and version number it seems. I will have to manually type it in myself.

dstillman · June 9, 2009

Ticket created to add a Date field.

I'm not sure if CSL (the underlying style language Zotero uses) has a variable that would be appropriate to map the version to. Do style guides provide any guidance for citing computer programs?

Rintze · June 9, 2009

I'm not sure if CSL (the underlying style language Zotero uses) has a variable that would be appropriate to map the version to.

The variables list of CSL seems to contain a good candidate:
http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/csl/schema/trunk/csl.rnc?view=markup
525 ## version description
526 "version"

fshic · August 26, 2009

I'm sorry I spent a few minutes looking for how item types were modified and didn't come up with a lot. Is this in

https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/system.sql

? I'm guessing we would need something like:

746 INSERT INTO itemTypeFields VALUES (32, 14, NULL, 18);

? Apologies for not actually understanding how the innards of zotero works. But in short, I'm also looking for a solution to this as currently I am storing references to computer programs (APA format) as a Conference Paper item type, setting my titles to things like:

"SPSS (Version 15.0) [Computer Software]"

just so the date appears correctly. This is almost certainly going to come back to haunt me.

komrade · August 26, 2009

Here's some free style guide references for software citation:

APA:
http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/citation/apa/software/
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/

MLA:
http://www.library.american.edu/subject/MLA.pdf (at the end, p4)

Chicago:
They want you to buy their book;
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/YouCouldLookItUp/YouCouldLookItUp03.html
But the crib sheet here gives you an idea:
http://www.docstyles.com/cmscrib.htm

Some people like to reference the hard-copy or electronic version of the software's manual, which would be cited like any other Web resource, though the Style Guides don't specify this as far as I can see.

Some technical software written by academics also says how they would like to be cited (sometimes a journal article that first introduced the software, e.g. http://welcome.warnercnr.colostate.edu/~gwhite/mark/mark.htm#Documentation)
I think it's better for the programmers careers if you cite the article rather than the software itself!

fshic · August 27, 2009

So it seems that all three of these formats have a date associated with Computer Programs.

komrade · August 27, 2009

Yes - sorry I should have made that clear. Year required for all 3 (if known).

erazlogo · August 28, 2009

Chicago:
They want you to buy their book;
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/YouCouldLookItUp/YouCouldLookItUp03.html
But the crib sheet here gives you an idea:
http://www.docstyles.com/cmscrib.htm

The official CMS 15 guide doesn't have an entry on citing computer programs, although the FAQ claims it does.

dstillman · January 26, 2010

"Date" has been added to the "Computer Program" item type in Zotero 2.0rc1, available now.

The "Version" field was already mapped to CSL's "version" variable.

hammett · January 26, 2010

Thanks, glad to see Zotero 2.0 reach RC status!