Feature Request: Subject bibliography

[RobBienvenu]

Jon--

Thanks--it's good to hear that this feature is on your "to assess" list. I've used Bookends for a few months now and am very happy and impressed. For me, and clearly others also, a subject bibliography would be a very helpful addition.

For others on the list--if you haven't already, please take a moment to answer the poll and indicate whether a subject bibliography feature would be helpful to you in your work. Jon obviously is attentive to the needs and concerns of his user base and this seems to be an appropriate thread for us to collectively address the subject bibliography feature.

[Jon]

I've been looking at the EN implementation of subject bibliographies and it seems overly complicated.

The way I envision this being used, one would need to be able to output a bib with the following possible groupings:

authors
editors
authors + editors
journals
keywords
color labels

Does this seems reasonable? Any other fields?

Jon
Sonny Software

[RobBienvenu]

Jon--

These fields seem reasonable--there may always be exceptions, but I think for most users these are the fields that would be used to organize categories within a subject bibliography.

For me, the only functional issue/request in implementing this would be the ability to select the specific keywords, etc. that would be used to generate a particular subject bibliography. Perhaps a popup that would list current entries within the selected key field--the user could indicate those that would be the organizing fields for the subject bib.

Thanks, Jon!!

[Jon]

The way EN does it is, after the field has been selected, to bring up a dialog showing all the headings (e.g. all the authors, keywords, or whatever you selected) and allow you to select which ones to group by. That would seem to address your concern, right?

Jon
Sonny Software

[RobBienvenu]

Jon--

Yes, that would do it. We need the ability to select/limit the terms to be used for a specific bibliography project. This would make it flexible and powerful, and would not require anyone to restructure their existing fields in order to use them to generate a subject bib.

[ozean]

Would it possible to group the output by sources/type that way? I.e. historians would differentiate primary sources (archival material, letters, etc.), secondary sources, and perhaps other stuff too. I once had to do a bibliography that separated books from articles and internet publications…

[Jon]

I forget to include reference Type in the list (it should be there).

Jon
Sonny Software

[ozean]

excellent!

[rorayburn]

I have a related question.

Is it impossible (still?) to group resources within a bibliography? For instance, for my dissertation I have commentaries, primary sources and secondary sources? These have been put into groups in Bookends. Is there a way to delineate that in the bibliography generated at the end of my work: commentaries first, primary docs second, etc.

Thanks.

[Jon]

Sure, you can arrange subject bibliographies by groups. Have you tried and it didn't work?

Jon
Sonny Software

[rorayburn]

Oops.

No, I have tried. I haven't figured out how to do it.

[Jon]

Please look up Subject Bibliographies in the user guide (Help menu). Basically, you choose this option (from the Biblio menu or when you scan), select the subject (Author, Group, Type, etc.), the references you want included, and then generate it. The user guide gives a more complete explanation, with images.

Jon
Sonny Software

[rorayburn]

Got it! Thanks.