TEI <bibl>, <biblStruct>, and <biblItem>
John A. Walsh
TEI/XML source: biblItem.xml

General Issue

As part of the general review of elements for TEI P5 and to address explicit concerns in the community regarding perceived limitations of existing TEI bibliographic elements (i.e., <bibl>, <biblStruct>, and <biblFull>), the Council decided to review
  • existing bibliographic elements <bibl> and <biblStruct>
  • a proposed new bibliographic element, tentatively named <biblItem>
  • alternative XML vocabularies for bibliographic description, namely the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS).
The goal of this review is to allow the editors and council to make an informed decision on whether or how to revise the TEI Guidelines in those areas relevant to constructing biblographies.
Possible options may include but are not limited to the following:
  1. Stay the course with the existing <bibl>, <biblStruct> and <biblFull>.
  2. Add a fourth bibliographic element, <biblItem> designed to address some of the limitations in the other three structures.
  3. Modify one or more of the existing structures to address limitations.
  4. Recommend and provide examples for incorporating external bibliographic description schema (e.g., MODS) into TEI documents.
The options above are not mutually exclusive. For instance, we could add the <biblItem> element and also provide examples for incorporating MODS into TEI documents.

MODS

MODS is closely aligned to the MARC 21 cataloging standard. The MODS homepage declares, "the 'Metadata Object Description Schema' (MODS) is intended to be able to carry selected data from existing MARC 21 records as well as to enable the creation of original resource description records." My analysis of MODS is that is more of a cataloging tool and not designed for conventional print or human-readable bibliographies that the TEI structures are very good at describing. MODS is powerful and useful and has many applications. It may well be useful to provide examples of the MODS schema incorporated into TEI, but I recommend against incorporating it as an "official" part of the TEI or modeling new TEI bibliographic structure on MODS.

<biblItem>

I strongly recommend against creating <biblItem>, which would be a fourth TEI bibliographic structure. Rather, we should work to address any shortcomings in the existing structures. The inability to describe relationships among bibliographic elements seems to be the major shortcoming that has been brought to our attention. There is a need to establish relationships (e.g., by linking or nesting) and a need to describe the nature of the relationship (e.g., translation, other format, host, etc.).
Borrowing from MODS, we could introduce a <relatedItem> element with a type attribute which would describe the nature of the relationship. <relatedItem> would be a child of <bibl> or <biblStruct> (<biblFull>?).The content of <relatedItem> could be a <bibl>, <biblStruct> (<biblFull>?) or a link to one of these elements.
The wrapper <relatedItem> element is a bit superfluous, but satisfies the need to describe the nature of the relationship and provides for a good deal of flexibily by allowing any of the TEI bibl* elements or a link as its content.

Example ODD for implementing <relatedItem>

                    
           <schemaSpec ident="relatedItem" start="TEI" xml:lang="en">
                <moduleRef key="core"/>
                <moduleRef key="tei"/>
                <moduleRef key="header"/>
                <moduleRef key="textstructure"/>
                <moduleRef key="figures"/>
                <moduleRef key="namesdates"/>
                <moduleRef key="tagdocs"/>
                <moduleRef key="linking"/>
                <moduleRef key="transcr"/>
                <moduleRef key="msdescription"/>
                
                <elementSpec ident="relatedItem" mode="add">
                    <desc/>
                    <classes>
                        <memberOf key="model.biblPart"/>
                        <memberOf key="att.typed"/>
                    </classes>
                    <content >
                        <rng:choice>
                            <rng:ref name="bibl"/>
                            <rng:ref name="biblStruct"/>
                            <rng:ref name="ref"/>
                        </rng:choice>
                    </content>
                </elementSpec>
                <elementSpec ident="biblStruct" module="core" mode="change">
                    <content>
                        <rng:group>
                            <rng:zeroOrMore>
                                <rng:ref name="analytic"/>
                            </rng:zeroOrMore>
                            <rng:oneOrMore>
                                <rng:ref name="monogr"/>
                                <rng:zeroOrMore>
                                    <rng:ref name="series"/>
                                </rng:zeroOrMore>
                            </rng:oneOrMore>
                            <rng:zeroOrMore>
                                <rng:choice>
                                    <rng:ref name="model.noteLike"/>
                                    <rng:ref name="idno"/>
                                </rng:choice>
                            </rng:zeroOrMore>
                            <rng:zeroOrMore>
                                <rng:ref name="relatedItem"/>
                            </rng:zeroOrMore>
                        </rng:group>
                    </content>
                </elementSpec>
                
            </schemaSpec>                    

                

Example uses of proposed <relatedItem> element

<relatedItem> with embedded <biblStruct>


                    <listBibl>
                        <biblStruct>
                            <analytic>
                                <title level="a">The Garden of Proserpine</title>
                                <author>Swinburne, Algernon Charles</author>
                            </analytic>
                            <monogr>
                                <title>The Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne</title>
                                <imprint>
                                    <pubPlace>London</pubPlace>
                                    <publisher>Chatto</publisher>
                                    <date value="1904"/>
                                    <biblScope type="volume">1</biblScope>
                                    <biblScope type="pages">169-172</biblScope>
                                </imprint>
                                <extent>6 vols.</extent>
                            </monogr>
                            <relatedItem type="other">
                                <biblStruct>
                                    <analytic>
                                        <title level="a">The Garden of Proserpine</title>
                                        <author>Swinburne, Algernon Charles</author>
                                    </analytic>
                                    <monogr>
                                        <imprint>
                                            <pubPlace> London </pubPlace>
                                            <publisher> Moxon </publisher>
                                            <date value="1866"> 1866 </date>
                                        </imprint>
                                    </monogr>
                                </biblStruct>
                            </relatedItem>
                        </biblStruct>
                    </listBibl>
                    
                    

<relatedItem> with embedded <ref> element

                    <listBibl>
                        <biblStruct xml:id="bibl03">
                            <monogr>
                                <author>Swinburne, Algernon Charles</author>
                                <title>Swinburne's <title>Atalana in Calydon</title>: A Facsimile of
                                    the First Edition</title>
                                <editor>Georges Lafourcade</editor>
                                <imprint>

                                    <pubPlace>London</pubPlace>
                                    <publisher>Oxford UP</publisher>
                                    <date>1930</date>
                                </imprint>
                            </monogr>

                            <relatedItem type="original">
                                <ref target="#bibl04"/>
                            </relatedItem>

                        </biblStruct>

                        <biblStruct xml:id="bibl04">
                            <monogr>
                                <author> Swinburne, Algerno Charles</author>
                                <title>Atalanta in Calydon</title>
                                <imprint>
                                    <pubPlace>London</pubPlace>
                                    <publisher>Moxon</publisher>
                                    <date>1865</date>
                                </imprint>
                            </monogr>
                        </biblStruct>
                    </listBibl>
                    

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