Add `volume-editor` et al?

[denismaier]

Original post

Multi-volume publications can have editors for the publication as a whole, and also editors for specific volumes. Currently, there's only one editor variable, so we cannot reasonably deal with this.

We should either add variables volume-editor, volume-translators et al, or deal with this using @relation.
(Just opening this issue so this doesn't get lost.)

This part of the question does not require further discussion.

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Questions regarding translator behavior

Adding volume-translator and volume-editor is uncontroversial enough and covered by an exiting PR. Where I am still unsure is how translator variable should behave.

Some style guides, e.g. MLA and Chicago, adjust placement of names according to their function. And looking at some anthologies quickly leads to a couple of examples where a

Status quo

At the moment, translator (just like editor) can sit on different levels. It can either be the translator of the item or of the container. In many styles, the place where translatorgets rendered depends on the item type. E.g. for article and book item types translator will be treated as the translator of the item, for chapters it will be rendered after container-title.

Given this, I assume in user data, translator currently means the translator of the container-title for chapter items, but the translator of the title for book, and article-like items.

The status quo works fine for most cases, but there's currently no way to distinguish between a translator of a chapter vs. the translator of an edited book/an anthology.

Notwithstanding the solution we come up with, we have to keep in mind that chapter translators usually don't (=never) appear in bibliographic databases so users will have to supply that information themselves.

Questions

The main question is how can we support his without being too disruptive to existing styles and user data.

Potential Solutions

Use a @related approach

In this model, we'd use the "related" attribute to specify on which level a name variable sits. E.g. names variable="translator" related="container" vs. names variable="translator" related="volume".
Conceptually, this here seems to be cleanest approach, but I'd would entail a refactoring of other existing variables as well (container-author -> author related="container").
I think we've decided not to do this at the moment.

That would also entail two changes:

• Calling apps would need to change their field mappings.
• Styles must be changed to accommodate these changes.

Add a new role container-translator

This is less radical than using relations, but more involved than the third solution.

• Define a new variable container-translator specifically for translators of the container. (Similar to container-author)
• Clarify that translator is assumed to be the translator of the item, not of the container.

That would also entail two changes:

• Calling apps would need to change their field mappings (e.g. Zotero's translator should then be mapped to CSL container-translator for chapters.)
• Styles must be changed to accommodate these changes.

Just like the first @related approach, this would be a bigger undertaking.

Add a new role chapter-translator or similar

This is potentially the easiest solution for the moment. Instead of changing the status quo, we just add a new role to it. This has no effect on the status quo as far as existing styles and user data are concerned and should be easy to implement. The obvious downside is that this is a bit problematic as we would end up with different roles that perform the same task and relate to the same title variable. (Both chapter-translator and translator translate the title).

Use a generic role (e.g. contributor) with user defined labels

If we can figure out #337, this might also be an option. A generic contributor role exists so this must only be added to styles. But this relies on #337 to be solved first.

[bwiernik]

Let's discuss the issue of translator (copied from a comment on #268):

The other situation that has been raised [for why container, volume, etc. might be included in the @related structure] is for things like distinguishing if a translator is the translator of the item (e.g., a specific chapter) or of the whole book. I'm skeptical that this is a distinction we should try to make. Bibliographic metadata seem to rarely make this distinction (the translator of either the chapter or whole book is just listed as "translator"), so I don't think that styles can rely on a translator variable to mean the item translator and container-translator to mean the translator of the whole book. Same with editor. We would almost always want to assume that editor/translator refers to the role for the whole container.

A potentially more reliable translator heuristic might be: "If the there is no editor or if editor and translator are the same [i.e., if variable="editor-translator"], then translator is the translator of the whole container; if there is an editor who is different from the translator, then translator is the translator of the specific item." But even that seems too unreliable.

[denismaier]

But even that seems too unreliable.

Well, heuristics will only get us so far. And in this particular case, I doubt they make us happy.

A good example that shows the problem: https://www.cambridge.org/core/series/cambridge-edition-of-the-works-of-immanuel-kant/703660AAB7838A41309D7E80AD5C8EEE

We have General Editors: Paul Guyer, Allen W. Wood.

Then each volume has its own editor(s) and also translators. Translators and editors may be identical, or not.
Then look at the "Lectures on Anthropology", e.g. on this lecture: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/lectures-on-anthropology/lecture-of-the-winter-semester-17721773-based-on-the-transcriptions-of-parow-euchel-brauer-hamilton-philippi-collins-and-dohna/A2727F1A0D0AA28C0A6FC68CD92EE196
This has its own translator as you can see in the PDF.

Now, we can discuss if we really should have container-translator, volume-translator and chapter-translator. At least Chicago requires only names that are listed on the title page, so maybe having three dimensions layers of information would be too much.

[denismaier]

But even that seems too unreliable.

Well, heuristics will only get us so far. And in this particular case, I doubt they make us happy.

OTOH, could we assume that editor and translator refer to a specific volume? If yes, we'd actually need a container-editor instead of volume-editor, or implement this with conditional logic: if not volume-editor then editor, or so.

[bwiernik]

Let’s focus on translator for now, as that is the trickier one.

Sure, if container-translator exists, then presumably translator would refer to the chapter translator. But there’s two catches there. First, most bibliographic databases don’t provide data in this way. So that limits the value of this in any case. More importantly, most items that would have individual chapter translators don’t also have whole-container translators. So that conditional almost never provides a distinguishable characteristic.

[denismaier]

Let’s focus on translator for now, as that is the trickier one.

Well, I was actually trying to leave chapter-translator aside for the moment and look if can somehow treat editors and translators together. Like so:
If we have container-title, volume, and volume-title, translator and editor are treated as belonging to volume-title
If we also have volume-editor => editor is used for things like general editor. (It might seem wiser to add container-editor and just treat editor as the editor of the volume, but that will lead to other problems, e.g. compatibility with legacy data, which variable should be used for editor if there's no volume-title?)

First, most bibliographic databases don’t provide data in this way. So that limits the value of this in any case.

I don't think we should really focus on this. Scholars in disciplines where you really need this will have to do a lot of manual data entry anyway.

More importantly, most items that would have individual chapter translators don’t also have whole-container translators.

Good call. I'd even say it's logically impossible to have chapter translators, volume translators and container translators at the same time in one item. It's either Translator A or B or both as a group. (OTOH, it's possible to have volume editors and general editors at the same time, because that's a different task. So that's quite a difference in requirements.)

[denismaier]

Perhaps it'd be best, if we start with a couple of examples:

Simple books:
Doe (2020). A translated book. Trans. by Smith. Publisher.
Doe (2020). A translated book. Ed. and trans. by Smith. Publisher.

Articles:
Doe (2020). A translated article. Trans. by Smith. Journal of translated studies.
Doe (2020). A translated article. Trans. by Smith. Journal of translated studies. Ed. by Jones.
Doe (2020). A translated article. Journal of translated studies. Vol. 5. Trans. by Smith.
Doe (2020). A translated article. Trans. by. Jones. Journal of translated studies. Vol. 5. Ed. by Smith
Doe (2020). A translated article. Journal of translated studies. Vol. 5. Ed. by Jones, Trans. by Smith.

Chapters in Containers:
Doe (2020). A translated chapter. Trans. by Smith. In Doe's Collected Writings. Ed. by Jones. Publisher.
Doe (2020). A translated chapter. In Doe's Collected Writings. Trans. by Smith, Ed. by Jones. Publisher.
Doe (2020). A translated chapter. In Doe's Collected Writings. Ed. and trans. by Smith. Publisher.

Doe (2020). A translated chapter. Trans. by Smith. In Doe's Collected Writings. Vol 5: The early writings. Ed. by Jones. Publisher.
Doe (2020). A translated chapter. In Doe's Collected Writings. Vol 5: The early writings. Ed. by Jones. Trans. by Smith. Publisher.
Doe (2020). A translated chapter. In Doe's Collected Writings. Ed. Jones. Vol 5: The early writings. Trans. by Smith. Publisher.
Doe (2020). A translated chapter. In Doe's Collected Writings. Ed. Jones. Vol 5: The early writings. Ed. and trans. by Smith. Publisher.
Doe (2020). A translated chapter. In Doe's Collected Writings. Ed. and trans. by Smith. Vol 5: The early writings. Publisher.

They are probably more relevant combinations.

[denismaier]

Should we now deal with this in 1.1? Anyone has an idea how we could best deal with this?

[bwiernik]

The question for translator comes down to this I think—what is more common for an article or a chapter with a container-title: a translator of the individual chapter or the translator of the whole container? For an article, I would guess an individual article. For a chapter, though, I’m not certain. @denismaier could you perhaps do some searching and get a sense?

[denismaier]

Ok. Let's see:

Styleguides:

Chicago and MLA both clearly adjust placement of names according to their function:

Chicago

Translators/editors of multivolume works, see 14.122:

Some multivolume works have both a general editor and individual editors or authors for each volume (and, as a third example, additional editors for new editions). When individual volumes are cited, the editor's (or translator's) name follows that part for which he or she is responsible.

Translators/editors for journal articles, see 14.183: "A translated or edited article follows essentially the same style as a translated or edited book: (see 14.104)." Example "Author, Arthur Q. "Article Title." Edited by Edward A. Editor. Journal Title ...

For translators of chapters there's nothing in the manual, but this FAQ entry on their website says:

Q. I’m trying to complete a bibliographic entry for a chapter in a multiauthor book. The chapter was translated from Korean into English. (The rest of the chapters have many various other translators.) How would I cite it? Where do I put the translation credit in the Chicago style citation? After the article title or after the book title?

A. When you have a special instance not covered in CMOS, fish around until you see something similar and follow the pattern. You might base your citation on CMOS 14.104 (“Editor or translator in addition to author”), 14.107 (“Contribution to a multiauthor book”), and 14.122 (“Authors and editors of multivolume works”). You don’t want to imply that the translator of the chapter was the translator of the entire book, so put the translator’s name after the chapter title:

13. Author’s Name, “Chapter Title,” trans. Translator’s Name, in Name of Multiauthor Book, ed. Editors’ Names (Place: Publisher, Date), page numbers.

MLA

MLA is much more concise than Chicago. On p. 38:

A source contained in a collection may have a contributor who did not play a role in the entire collection. For instance, stories and poems in an anthology are often translated by various hands. Identify such a contributor after the title of the source rather than after that of the collection."

Fagih, Ahmed Ibrahim al-. *The Singing of the Stars". Translated by Leila El Khalidi and Christopher Tingley. *Short Arabic Plays: An Anthology", edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Interlink Books, 2003, pp. 140-57.

See also p. 36:

When a publication fact applies to more than one container, the fact is cited in the last relevant container.

Second, data:

Concering real world bibliographic data, I don't think it's reasonable to rely too much on heuristics. One case where we indeed can rely on heuristics is the journal article case. It should be safe to assume that there won't be many translators of a whole journal issue. But maybe for special issues? So in general, we can probably safely assume translator == primary-translator for articles. For chapters or even single volumes in a multi-volulume book I really don't know. I guess these days you won't find many edited collections that are translated as a whole, so maybe it's the same here as with journal articles. But looking at anthologies and collected works gives a different picture.

I've just browsed through my shelf, and I can come up with a couple of examples where we have distinct chapter translators (sorry, all examples are into German):

Judith Butler. Einleitung. Translated by Michael Halfbrodt. In Die Seele und die Formen. Vol. 1 of Werkauswahl in Einzelbänden, by Georg Lukacs. Edited by Frank Benseler and Rüdiger Dannemann. Aisthesis, 2011, p. 1--20.

The introduction has been translated, the rest is German in the original.

Michel Foucault. Analytik der Macht. Edited by Daniel Defert and Francois Ewald. Translated by Reiner Ansén, Michael Bischoff, Hans-Dieter Gondek, Hermann Kocyba and Jürgen Schröder. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 2005.

Collection of essays by Michel Foucault. Each essay has its distinct translator.

But we have also these examples where a translator is the translator of the container:

Gershom Scholem. Ursprünge, Widersprüche und Auswirkungen des Sabbatianismus. In Erlösung durch Sünde. Edited and translated by Michael Brocke. Vol. 5 of Judaica, by Gershom Scholem. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt, 1992, pp. 117--130.

The whole volume is edited and translated by the same person. (But Judaica volume 6 is edited and translated by someone else.)

Albert Camus. Fragen der Zeit. Translated by Guido G. Meister. Rowohlt: Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1977.

One chapter would then be cited like this:

Albert Camus. "Betrachtungen zur Todesstrafe". In: Fragen der Zeit. By Albert Camus. Translated by Guido G. Meister. Rowohlt: Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1977, pp. 103--156.

One translator for the complete multivolume work:

Platon. Politeia. In Sämtliche Werke. By Platon. Edited by. Karlheinz Hülser. Translated by Friedrich Schleiermacher. Volume 5. Insel Verlag: Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, 1991.

[bwiernik]

So, based on that, we could assume that translator is the translator of the item, not the container. In the rare cases that the item has a container and a translator of the container, it's a fairly innocuous error to place the translator after the title instead of the container. The editortranslator collapsing rules would still apply (wherein the translator would be of the whole work).

We could add a container-translator role to explicitly handle the rare case.

So that would be volume-editor, container-translator, volume-translator?

[denismaier]

So, based on that, we could assume that translator is the translator of the item, not the container. In the rare cases that the item has a container and a translator of the container, it's a fairly innocuous error to place the translator after the title instead of the container. The editortranslator collapsing rules would still apply (wherein the translator would be of the whole work).

We could add a container-translator role to explicitly handle the rare case.

So that would be volume-editor, container-translator, volume-translator?

Yes, basically I think we should treat translator as the translator of the item, not of the container, and then add the variables you've mentioned. That should be a simple xslt upgrade of existing styles right? (Currently, I think the assumption is that translator is the translator of the container, so we should be able to replace translator with container-translator, right? (Hmmm, maybe translator in cs:substitute complicates that a bit, and we'll need to check if translator already is called in conditionals that check for, e.g., item type...

volume-translator is a new role that currently does not exist at all, so no problem here. Calling applications will have to adjust there field mapping, of course, but otherwise they could even keep their current fields.

Other opinions? @bdarcus @PaulStanley @cormacrelf @fbennett

[denismaier]

The other question then is if we should something like this:

Mémoire sur le saint apôtre Barnabé. Ed. by Peter Van Deun. In: Peter VanDeun. “Un mémoire anonyme sur saint Barnabé (BHG 226e). Édition et tra-duction.” In: Analecta Bollandiana 108 (1990), pp. 326–335

That's a text edited in a journal article. Support for this would mean we should adopt the same reasoning for editor as outlined above for translator; editor being the editor of the item, not of the container, and adding a new container-editor. (Or we keep the current editor behaviour, but add a primary-item-editor or something similar.)

On the other hand, as these kind of citations seem to be a speciality of certain domains like theology and classics, it might be an option to solve this using the new classic item type?

[bwiernik]

translator in existing styles

For a lot of styles, this doesn't matter. Otherwise, yeah, generally expecting that translator sits at the same level as editor. In the vast majority of styles, it is simply cited as "editor translator", which is fine. I don't think a change could be automated well (e.g., we need to add a test for editor-translator, then render editor and translator separately and add container-translator), but it's also not a big deal ("wrong" citations here aren't terribly wrong), so we can handle changing it over time as reports come in.

container-editor

I think the example citation is covered by editorial-director. In the example, the first "Peter Van Deun" is the textual editor of "Mémoire sur le saint apôtre Barnabé", and the second "Peter VanDeun" is saying he is the managing editor and translator of the container "Analecta Bollandiana"?

[denismaier]

I think the example citation is covered by editorial-director. In the example, the first "Peter Van Deun" is the textual editor of "Mémoire sur le saint apôtre Barnabé", and the second "Peter VanDeun" is saying he is the managing editor and translator of the container "Analecta Bollandiana"?

Not really. I took the example from the biblatex-bookinother package (documentation, p. 4). Biblatex data is this:

@article{VanDeun1990,
Author = {Van Deun, Peter},
Journaltitle = {Analecta Bollandiana},
Number = {108},
Pages = {323-335},
Subtitle = {Édition et traduction},
Title = {Un mémoire anonyme sur saint Barnabé (BHG 226e)},
Year = {1990}}

@bookinarticle{BHG226e,
bookineditor = {Van Deun, Peter},
Crossref = {VanDeun1990},
Pages = {326-335},
Title = {Mémoire sur le saint apôtre Barnabé}}

Another example where editorial-director could work is:

@collection{Doe2016,
Editor = {John Doe},
Eventdate = {2010-01-01/2010-01-05},
Location = {Paris},
Publisher = {Publisher},
Title = {A Collection of Contribution},
Year = {2016}}

@bookincollection{Aristotle2016,
Author = {Aristotle},
Bookineditor = {Book editor},
Title = {The Ancient Text},
Crossref = {Doe2016},
Pages = {20-50},
}

Example output: Aristotle. The Ancient Text. Ed. by Book editor. In: A Collection of Contribution. Ed. by John Doe. Paris: Publisher, 2016, pp. 20–50

(Actually, I am not sure editorial-director is a good fit. Won't that lead to wrong labels in some locales?)