About Bibliography

The bibliography module stores information about publications associated with samples from the collection. A bibliography record should contain enough information to confidently identify a resource. It is not the definitive record and should ideally be generated from information provided by the publisher (for example, using the BibTeX record provided by the DOI resolver).

Data standard

A standard bibliography record should contain the following fields:

  • Title

  • Author

  • Journal name

  • Publication year

  • Volume (if exists)

  • Issue (if exists)

  • Pages

To exceed standards, a record should also specify a DOI or other stable handle in the GUID grid. Records with DOIs are easier to link to external repositories containing publications data.

Parties in ebibliography

The implementation of bibliography records in Axiell EMu is overly complex. NMNH Informatics is working with Axiell to simplify this module, but until that happens, here are some issues that make working with this module unpleasant:

  • Each book and journal requires its own bibliography record

  • Each publication type has its own set of backend fields

  • Each author, editor, and publisher requires its own party record

The last point creates a significant difficulty for maintaining a clean Parties module. Parties created solely for use in bibliographic records are clearly less important than parties for transactors, collectors, or staff, but are not necessarily easy to distinguish, especially for new or occasional EMu users. All parties created solely for Bibliography should therefore contain the following data to help users distinguish them from legitimate party records:

  • Person/Organization > Source of Information: Publication

  • Security > Record Status: Unlisted

It is acceptable to use an existing party record as an author. In this case, that record should not be unlisted or flagged as coming for a publication.