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Notes on bibliographic metadata in JSON
https://github.com/rdmpage/bibliographic-metadata-json

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Notes on bibliographic metadata in JSON

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# Representing bibliographic data in JSON



These are notes on how to model bibliographic metadata in JSON. I am assuming that if you are reading this you accept representing data as documents, and serialising those documents in JSON is a good thing to do. For example, once you have data in JSON you can store it in a database such as CouchDB, or a search index like Elasticsearch. Other models are available, such as using a relational database (e.g., Pyle, R. L. (2004). Taxonomer: a relational data model for managing information relevant to taxonomic research. Phyloinformatics, 1, 1–54. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.59790 ).



## BibJSON



BibJSON is a convention for representing bibliographic metadata   in JSON http://okfnlabs.org/bibjson/. It is heavily influenced by BibTeX. For an account of using BibJSON with Elasticsearch see [Indexing Linked Bibliographic Data with JSON-LD, BibJSON and Elasticsearch](http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/7949).



Below is some BibJSON for **The valid generic name for red-backed voles (Muroidea: Cricetidae: Arvicolinae): restatement of the case for Myodes Pallas, 1811** [doi:10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004](http://dx.doi.org/10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004) (slightly simplified, the original BibJSON served by CouchDB can be viewed at http://bionames.org/api/id/10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004 )



```javascript

{

	"title": "The valid generic name for red-backed voles (Muroidea: Cricetidae: Arvicolinae): restatement of the case for Myodes Pallas, 1811",

	"journal": {

		"name": "Journal of Mammalogy",

		"volume": "95",

		"issue": "5",

		"pages": "943",

		"identifier": [{

			"type": "issn",

			"id": "0022-2372"

		}]

	},

	"year": "2014",

	"author": [{

		"firstname": "Michael D.",

		"lastname": "Carleton",

		"name": "Michael D. Carleton"

	}, {

		"firstname": "Alfred L.",

		"lastname": "Gardner",

		"name": "Alfred L. Gardner"

	}, {

		"firstname": "Igor Ya.",

		"lastname": "Pavlinov",

		"name": "Igor Ya. Pavlinov"

	}, {

		"firstname": "Guy G.",

		"lastname": "Musser",

		"name": "Guy G. Musser"

	}],

	"identifier": [{

		"type": "doi",

		"id": "10.1644\/14-MAMM-A-004"

	}],

	"type": "article",

	"abstract": "In view of contradictions in the recent literature, the valid genus-group name to be applied to northern red-backed voles\u2014 Myodes Pallas, 1811, or Clethrionomys Tilesius, 1850\u2014is reviewed. To develop the thesis that Myodes (type species, Mus rutilus Pallas, 1779) is the correct name, our discussion explores the 19th-century taxonomic works that bear on the relevant taxa, the transition in zoological codes apropos the identification of type species, and past nomenclatural habits in cases where no type species was originally indicated. We conclude that Myodes is the senior name to use for the genus-group taxon that includes the Holarctic species rutilus and frame this conclusion within a synonymy of the genus."

}

```



### Pros

- simple to read

- easy to add extra elements such as identifiers (e.g., Handles, PMC, etc.)

- promoted by OKFN

- used in [BioStor](http://biostor.org) and [BioNames](http://bionames.org)

### Cons

- BibTeX influence leads to odd conventions such as “--“ (two dashes) to separate page numbers

- sometimes a pain to index - for example, there is no “DOI” field, you have to iterate over the **identifier** key to find the DOI (if it exists), likewise you have to split the **pages** field to get the first and last page of an article.



## CSL-JSON



The Citation Style Language (CSL) is a set of standards and tools to generate formatted bibliographies in virtually any style. Although arguably the whole notion that each journal should have its own particular style for citing articles is madness, CSL has proved to be a popular tool. The files that specify the journal formats are in XML, but metadata for the article itself is often represented in JSON (see https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema#csl-json-schema). CSL-JSON has been adopted by CrossRef as the native format returned by their API (they support other formats as well via content negotiation), and you can get CSL-JSON for any CrossRef DOI using content negotiation, or through the [CrossRef search tool](http://search.crossref.org) by clicking on the “Actions” then “Metadata as JSON” menu. Here is CSL JSON for the article [doi:10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004](http://dx.doi.org/10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004) (directly available from https://api.crossref.org/v1/works/http://dx.doi.org/10.1644/14-mamm-a-004)



```javascript

{

	"status": "ok",

	"message-type": "work",

	"message-version": "1.0.0",

	"message": {

		"indexed": {

			"date-parts": [

				[2017, 1, 9]

			],

			"date-time": "2017-01-09T20:46:47Z",

			"timestamp": 1483994807990

		},

		"reference-count": 119,

		"publisher": "Oxford University Press (OUP)",

		"issue": "5",

		"content-domain": {

			"domain": [],

			"crossmark-restriction": false

		},

		"short-container-title": ["J Mammal"],

		"cited-count": 0,

		"published-print": {

			"date-parts": [

				[2014, 10, 31]

			]

		},

		"DOI": "10.1644\/14-mamm-a-004",

		"type": "journal-article",

		"created": {

			"date-parts": [

				[2014, 10, 29]

			],

			"date-time": "2014-10-29T22:40:25Z",

			"timestamp": 1414622425000

		},

		"page": "943-959",

		"source": "CrossRef",

		"title": ["The valid generic name for red-backed voles (Muroidea: Cricetidae: Arvicolinae): restatement of the case forMyodesPallas, 1811"],

		"prefix": "http:\/\/id.crossref.org\/prefix\/10.1093",

		"volume": "95",

		"author": [{

			"given": "Michael D.",

			"family": "Carleton",

			"affiliation": []

		}, {

			"given": "Alfred L.",

			"family": "Gardner",

			"affiliation": []

		}, {

			"given": "Igor Ya.",

			"family": "Pavlinov",

			"affiliation": []

		}, {

			"given": "Guy G.",

			"family": "Musser",

			"affiliation": []

		}],

		"member": "http:\/\/id.crossref.org\/member\/286",

		"published-online": {

			"date-parts": [

				[2014, 10, 31]

			]

		},

		"container-title": ["Journal of Mammalogy"],

		"original-title": [],

		"deposited": {

			"date-parts": [

				[2017, 1, 9]

			],

			"date-time": "2017-01-09T19:46:39Z",

			"timestamp": 1483991199000

		},

		"score": 1.0,

		"subtitle": [],

		"short-title": [],

		"issued": {

			"date-parts": [

				[2014, 10, 31]

			]

		},

		"alternative-id": ["10.1644\/14-MAMM-A-004"],

		"URL": "http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1644\/14-mamm-a-004",

		"ISSN": ["0022-2372", "1545-1542"],

		"issn-type": [{

			"value": "0022-2372",

			"type": "print"

		}, {

			"value": "1545-1542",

			"type": "electronic"

		}],

		"citing-count": 119,

		"subject": ["Ecology", "Animal Science and Zoology", "Genetics", "Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics", "Nature and Landscape Conservation"]

	}

}

```

The CSL-JSON is stored in the **message** key. CrossRef has added a lot of CrossRef-specific fields to do with indexing, as well as links to ORCID, FundRef, etc. Note that values for some fields can be either strings or arrays, so any software processing CSL-JSON needs to handle both data types.



An advantage of CSL-JSON is that if you want to display journal-style article citations, then the data is already in the format that the CSL tools require, making this step relatively trivial.



### Multi-lingual 



Frank G. Bennett outlined a way to store multi-lingual information about a reference (e.g., the title may occur in more than one language). His description is hard to find, but is in the [wayback machine](https://web.archive.org/web/20150406064709/http://gsl-nagoya-u.net/http/pub/citeproc-doc.html#id36) and below I’ve extracted the relevant section.



[start of extract]



### Data format



Multi-lingual operation depends upon the presence of alternative representations of field content embedded in the item data. When alternative field content is not availaable, the "real" field content is used as a fallback. As a result, configuration of language and script selection parameters will have no effect when only a single language is available (as will normally be the case for an ordinary Zotero data store).



#### Title



For titles and other ordinary string fields, alternative representations are placed in a separate multi segment on the item, keyed to the field name and the language tag (note the use of the _keys element on the multi object):



```javascript

{ "title" : "民法",

  "multi": {

    "_keys": {

      "title": {

        "ja-alalc97": "Minpō",

        "en":"Civil Code"

      }

        }

  }

}

```



#### Names



For names, alternative representations are set on a multi segment of the name object itself (note the use of the _key element on the multi object):



Hint: As described above, fixed ordering is used for non-Byzantine names. When such names are transliterated, the static-ordering element is set on them, to preserve their original formatting behavior.



```javascript

{ "author" : [

    { "family" : "穂積",

      "given" : "陳重",

      "multi": {

        "_key": {

          "ja-alalc97": {

            "family" : "Hozumi",

            "given" : "Nobushige"

          }

        }

      }

    },

    { "family" : "中川",

      "given" : "善之助"

      "multi": {

        "_key": {

          "ja-alalc97": {

            "family" : "Nakagawa",

            "given" : "Zennosuke"

          }

        }

      }

    }

  ]

}

```



[end of extract]



Based on this description, the article **伊朗West Azarbaijan省切叶蜂科(膜翅目:蜜蜂总科)昆虫种类** (in English **The species of Megachilidae (Hymenoptera: Apoidea)from West Azarbaijan province, northwestern Iran**) [doi:10.15914/j.cnki.wykx.2015.31.06](http://dx.doi.org/10.15914/j.cnki.wykx.2015.31.06) can be represented like this:



```javascript

{

	"id": "ITEM-1",

	"title": "\u4f0a\u6717West Azarbaijan\u7701\u5207\u53f6\u8702\u79d1(\u819c\u7fc5\u76ee:\u871c\u8702\u603b\u79d1)\u6606\u866b\u79cd\u7c7b",

	"abstract": "\u672c\u6587\u8bb0\u8ff0\u4e86\u4f0a\u6717\u897f\u5317\u90e8West Azarbaijan\u7701\u7684\u5207\u53f6\u8702\u79d1\u6606\u866b\u79cd\u7c7b.\u603b\u8ba1\u8bb0\u8ff08\u5c5e(Anthidium Fabricius,Chelostoma Latreille,Coelioxys Latreille,Heriades Spinola,Hoplitis Klug,Lithurgus Berthold,Megachile Latreille\u548cOsmia Panzer) 25\u79cd,\u5176\u4e2d2\u79cdMegachile(Creightonella)albisecta(KIug,1817)\u548cMegachile(Chalicodoma)parietina(Geoffroy,1785)\u4e3a\u4f0a\u6717\u5206\u5e03\u65b0\u8bb0\u5f55.",

	"multi": {

		"_key": {

			"title": {

				"zh": "\u4f0a\u6717West Azarbaijan\u7701\u5207\u53f6\u8702\u79d1(\u819c\u7fc5\u76ee:\u871c\u8702\u603b\u79d1)\u6606\u866b\u79cd\u7c7b",

				"en": "The species of Megachilidae (Hymenoptera: Apoidea)from West Azarbaijan province, northwestern Iran"

			},

			"abstract": {

				"zh": "\u672c\u6587\u8bb0\u8ff0\u4e86\u4f0a\u6717\u897f\u5317\u90e8West Azarbaijan\u7701\u7684\u5207\u53f6\u8702\u79d1\u6606\u866b\u79cd\u7c7b.\u603b\u8ba1\u8bb0\u8ff08\u5c5e(Anthidium Fabricius,Chelostoma Latreille,Coelioxys Latreille,Heriades Spinola,Hoplitis Klug,Lithurgus Berthold,Megachile Latreille\u548cOsmia Panzer) 25\u79cd,\u5176\u4e2d2\u79cdMegachile(Creightonella)albisecta(KIug,1817)\u548cMegachile(Chalicodoma)parietina(Geoffroy,1785)\u4e3a\u4f0a\u6717\u5206\u5e03\u65b0\u8bb0\u5f55."

			},

			"container-title": {

				"zh": "\u6b66\u5937\u79d1\u5b66",

				"en": "Wuyi Science Journal"

			}

		}

	},

	"type": "article-journal",

	"issued": {

		"date-parts": [

			["2015"]

		]

	},

	"author": [{

		"given": "Hassan",

		"family": "GHAHARI"

	}, {

		"given": "Neveen",

		"family": "S.GADALLAH"

	}, {

		"given": "Hassan",

		"family": "GHAHARI"

	}, {

		"given": "Neveen",

		"family": "S.GADALLAH"

	}],

	"container-title": "\u6b66\u5937\u79d1\u5b66",

	"volume": "31",

	"issue": "1",

	"page": "68-79",

	"ISSN": ["1001-4276"],

	"DOI": "10.15914\/j.cnki.wykx.2015.31.06",

	"URL": "http:\/\/d.wanfangdata.com.cn\/Periodical\/wykx201501006"

}

```



The **multi** key lists the values for different languages.



### Citations

CrossRef have recently started including lists of literature cited in the DOI metadata, see the [Initiative for Open Citations](https://i4oc.org). These are in the **references** key, e.g. for  [doi:10.3897/zookeys.520.9558](https://api.crossref.org/v1/works/http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.520.9558) the first three references are:



```javascript

		"reference": [{

			"key": "5985_B1",

			"DOI": "10.1002\/mmnd.18950400203"

		}, {

			"key": "5985_B2",

			"DOI": "10.1111\/j.1365-2311.1948.tb01236.x"

		}, {

			"key": "5985_B3",

			"first-page": "144",

			"article-title": "A new species of Minettia Desvoidy (Diptera, Sapromyzidae).",

			"volume": "99",

			"author": "Collin",

			"year": "1966",

			"journal-title": "The Entomologist"

		}

]

```



### Pros

- used by CrossRef (with lots of extra data)

- used by [AnyStyle](https://anystyle.io) citation parser

- easy to format citations using CSL tools

- support for multiple languages in metadata



### Cons

- not always the easiest to read

- field names not always obvious

- format driven by supporting displaying citations



## JSON-LD



JSON-LD is linked data in JSON, see http://json-ld.org. The data structure is a set of triples, using whatever vocabulary you like. Hence it isn’t a data structure in the sense of BibJSON or CSL-JSON. Below is an example of JSON-LD “in the wild”, in this case in embedded in a ``````  tag in the ```<head>``` of the web page https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/95/5/943/984478/The-valid-generic-name-for-red-backed-voles [doi:10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004](http://dx.doi.org/10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004). It uses [schema.org](http://schema.org) as the vocabulary.



```javascript

<script type="application/ld+json">

{

	"@context": "http://schema.org",

	"@id": "https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/95/5/943/984478/The-valid-generic-name-for-red-backed-voles",

	"@type": "ScholarlyArticle",

	"name": " The valid generic name for red-backed voles (Muroidea: Cricetidae: Arvicolinae): restatement of the case for  Myodes  Pallas, 1811 ",

	"datePublished": "2014-10-31",

	"isPartOf": {

		"@id": "https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/issue/95/5",

		"@type": "PublicationIssue",

		"issueNumber": "5",

		"datePublished": "2014-10-31",

		"isPartOf": {

			"@id": "https://academic.oup.com/jmammal",

			"@type": "Periodical",

			"name": "Journal of Mammalogy",

			"issn": ["1545-1542"]

		}

	},

	"url": "http://dx.doi.org/10.1644/14-MAMM-A-004",

	"keywords": ["<italic>Clethrionomys</italic>", "<italic>Evotomys</italic>", "Lemmus", "nomenclature", "taxonomy"],

	"inLanguage": "en",

	"copyrightHolder": "American Society of Mammalogists",

	"copyrightYear": "2017",

	"publisher": "Oxford University Press",

	"sameAs": "https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/95/5/943/984478/The-valid-generic-name-for-red-backed-voles",

	"author": [{

		"name": "Carleton, Michael D.",

		"@type": "Person"

	}, {

		"name": "Gardner, Alfred L.",

		"@type": "Person"

	}, {

		"name": "Pavlinov, Igor Ya.",

		"@type": "Person"

	}, {

		"name": "Musser, Guy G.",

		"@type": "Person"

	}],

	"description": " In view of contradictions in the recent literature, the valid genus-group name to be applied to northern red-backed voles— Myodes Pallas, 1811, or Clethrionomys Tilesius, 1850—is reviewed. To develop the thesis that Myodes (type species, Mus rutilus Pallas, 1779) is the correct name, our discussion explores the 19th-century taxonomic works that bear on the relevant taxa, the transition in zoological codes apropos the identification of type species, and past nomenclatural habits in cases where no type species was originally indicated. We conclude that Myodes is the senior name to use for the genus-group taxon that includes the Holarctic species rutilus and frame this conclusion within a synonymy of the genus. ",

	"pageStart": "943",

	"pageEnd": "959"

}



```



### Pros

- linked data, so can be added straight to a triple store



### Cons

- not widely used (yet?)

- to be useful requires that everyone agrees on the same vocabulary and uses shared identifiers (DOIs and ISSNs make this relatively simple, although representing DOIs is poorly standardised, e.g. doi:, http://dx.doi.org/, https://doi.org/, etc.)