Canonical reference locator

[adunning]

It would be helpful to have a locator type for a canonical reference, i.e. a complex locator that combines different elements such as book, chapter, and line numbers. We've been getting away without this because so many of the relevant styles do not label page locators, but APA 8.13 tidily illustrates the problem:

For religious and classical works with canonically numbered parts common across editions (e.g., books, chapters, verses, lines, cantos), cite the part instead of a page number (see Section 9.42).

(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019, p. 10)
(Shimamura, 2017, Chapter 3)
(Armstrong, 2015, pp. 3–17)
(Shadid, 2020, paras. 2–3)
(Kovačič & Horvat, 2019, Table 1)
(Thompson, 2020, Slide 7)
(Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, 2012, 1:30:40)
(King James Bible, 1769/2017, 1 Cor. 13:1)
(Aristotle, ca. 350 B.C.E./1994, Part IV)
(Shakespeare, 1623/1995, 1.3.36–37)

The Beck Institute example is a timestamp, but some styles require a locator label for this type of locator.

Describe the solution you'd like

Styles would consistently render a canonical reference locator without a locator label, simply by adding it to the specification and leaving the labels blank in the locales, and styles could also use it to handle different punctuation much more easily.

Describe alternatives you've considered

The best solution I can think of for equivalents of the Shakespeare example is to hide the locator on a section with a classic item, but that doesn't cover many typical uses. Some styles also require different punctuation with a canonical reference (potentially without a space, such as Virgil, Aeneid 6.123).

Additional context

• Chicago covers this in 14.142–154, e.g.
• MHRA 7.3: The Merchant of Venice, ii. 3. 10
• New Hart's Rules 17.2.5: Liber de caesaribus, v.39.20
• MLA includes many examples of this, e.g. under 6.22, Verse Works (Hamlet 1.5.35–37)
• Other APA examples can be found on their Religious Work References page

[bwiernik]

Those are verses aren't they? CSL has a verse locator

[adunning]

Just like timestamp, which combines hours and minutes, these are composite locations within a work. The Shakespeare examples refer to act, scene, and line numbers; the biblical example is a combination of chapter and verse numbers; the De caesaribus reference is probably to a book, chapter, and section; a reference such as Gesta regum Anglorum, iii.5 is typically to a book and chapter.

One solution to obtaining the formatting that the involved styles expect might be to add an is-numeric="locator" conditional on any of the potentially involved types (verse, chapter, act, book, line, part, scene) that determines whether or not to hide the locator label. Then, for example, if one were using a book locator, one would receive 'Liber de caesaribus, bk. 5' but 'Liber de caesaribus, v.39.20'. It would be less robust than a written equivalent to timestamp, but would such an approach be preferable to another locator type?

[adunning]

@bwiernik I have just added commits to show how using is-numeric works in APA/Chicago/MHRA. Bizarrely, it works as expected with book, chapter, part, and verse, but not with act, canon, or scene. You will note that in Chicago (as in MLA) it also needs different punctuation.

I have just noticed that this is not compatible with the Aristotle, Part IV example in APA 8.13, since this is a Roman numeral – perhaps this behaviour should not apply to part. Let me know first, however, if this seems sensible to you, or whether it would be better to hold off for a canonical locator type.

CMOS 14.145, by the way, refers to this as an 'identifying number' – perhaps the locator type could simply be called an 'identifier', which might also give it a use beyond the humanities.