Sonny Software

As a newbie Word/EndNote convert to Latex/BibTex+Bookends, I am having problems with the fields used by the reference type "Conference Proceedings" (corresponding I believe to BibTeX "InProceedings").

I understand the required fields for InProceedings to be: Authors, Title, BookTitle, Year
(see, e.g., http://www.uibk.ac.at/th-physik/howto/b ... tx-14.html).
In my configuration (this may not be the default configuration since I have moved things around a bit without keeping a trace ), BookTitle corresponds to the "Volume" field (i.e., as it does for the Book Chapter reference type). This does indeed correspond to the fields highlighted in bookends when the BibTeX option is turned on. In fact, the only difference I observe between the Book Chapter and InProceedings reference types is that the former also requires the publisher field.

However, the data imported from my old EndNote library has put the conference name data into the "Journals" field. In most of the output formats I have looked at (e.g., APA, Chicago, Nature), it also this "Journals" field which seems to be where the conference name data is expected.

So I am in a quandary:
- if I follow the BibTeX highlighted required fields when entering new data, I am guided to enter the that data into to the Journals field; it is then ignored by the above-mentioned Bookend-supplied styles;
- if I want to use Bookend-supplied styles, I need to change the BibTex required field so that BookTitle corresponds to Journals, but there seems to be no way to do this (this would of course make InProceedings field definitions inconsistent with those of Book Chapter).

Is there something I've missed (or misconfigured) something or what? Should I just forget InProceedings and enter all conference papers as Book Chapters?

Hi, since you're importing from EndNote (XML or Refer?) and BibTeX, it's not clear to me where the problem is coming from. Is it that the BibTeX importer is putting Booktitle in Volume?

Jon
Sonny Software

The import was done via XML. I can't repeat this to check since I have now changed machines and have not installed EndNote on my new machine.

But there are two problems:

1) The imported "Name of conference" (Booktitle) is NOT in the Volume field but in the Journals field, whereas the BibTeX "required field" option highlights the Volume field (both for InProceedings and Book Chapter).

2) The supplied (non-BibTeX) reference styles APA, Chicago, Nature for conference papers seem to want the "Name of conference" data in the Journals field.

So, the positioning of the "Name of Conference" data is conflictual. It's currently OK (in Journals field) for supplied reference styles APA, Chicago, Nature, but wrong for BibTeX. If I move the data to the Volume field, it would be OK for BibTeX (and compatible with how "Book Chapter" data is organized), but not OK for the supplied reference styles APA, Chicago, Nature.

Is this clearer?

Yes, thanks.

The 'required field' indicator for Conference Proceeedings is incorrect. I'll fix that. BTW, it's cosmetic only. Bookends doesn't enforce data entry, it's just for your information.

I don't think I can fix the BibTeX import issue, since BookTitle is used for books, too. Since the filter can't use the same tag for two different fields based on reference type, the BookTitle will go in the volume field. You can post-process the database, though, using Global Change to move the Volume field to the Conf Name field for Conference Proceedings.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks, Jon. It is reassuring to know that my data import was not the cause of this apparent inconsistency.