BibJSON vs CSL-data JSON

[clbarnes]

The citation style language, which many citation tools use under the hood, primarily uses XML for storage under the hood. However, citeproc-js introduced a JSON schema which (obviously) maps very nicely onto the CSL data model and seems to have more tooling available for it than bibJSON.

For the good of the ecosystem, it is essential that the two projects acknowledge each other. Why should I use one over the other? Why do they both need to exist? Are there good conversion tools?

https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema

[petermr]

We developed BibJSON 10 years ago . We tried to get update then but with limited success. I don't think anyone uses it now. So I suspect that none of us would be too worried to see CSL js used.

[rufuspollock]

@clbarnes could you give a bit more info on the CSL model. I thought CSL's were more about how to do format the citation not the format of the bibliographic record itself and my quick browse of the link did not immediately clarify for me 😄

And general +1 to @petermr point though note i still do some stuff with this tooling and would like to come back to it more!

[clbarnes]

In order to format citations, you need to know which bit goes where! The "standard" CSL spec prescribes e.g. "first_name last_name, publisher, year month; journal page", but it needs to get the information for what is the first and last name etc. from somewhere: this is basically the "variables" section of the CSL spec http://docs.citationstyles.org/en/stable/specification.html#standard-variables

CSL-data JSON formalises those variables into a JSON schema: https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/blob/master/csl-data.json which basically represents the same data as bibJSON.

[clbarnes]

To be clear, I'm not demanding that either project fold! My motivation is simply that I started working on a tool which involved serialising citation data in a manner which I wanted to be as amenable to formatting as possible, and had real trouble comparing formats because none of them seemed to acknowledge each others' existence, let alone the ecosystem surrounding them. Just a reference in the readme to the other options and why they might be better or worse in different situations would be great.

[richard-jones]

Just for info, DOAJ does technically use BibJSON as its core metadata format, though in reality we've had to bend it in all kinds of directions to accommodate the data model, and most of what's in it now is custom to DOAJ.

[petermr]

Thanks Richard Good to know. It's surprising that more people don't want structured formats . I'm working to convert html <meta tags with highwire into something with structure

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On Fri, 6 Mar 2020, 20:57 Richard Jones, ***@***.***> wrote: Just for info, DOAJ does technically use BibJSON as its core metadata format, though in reality we've had to bend it in all kinds of directions to accommodate the data model, and most of what's in it now is custom to DOAJ. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAFTCS4FZ2M64GLURQNIQ2TRGDCKBANCNFSM4HQFWTIQ> .