Re: bibliography with certain canonical reference

Hi Jean-Pierre

 

I also think it would be great if context-sbl were part of the distribution,
but that poses maintenenace questions… A module might be more appropriate.

 

Regarding this:

 

> have begun experimenting in that direction as well, still within ConTeXt’s
native publications architecture rather than by creating a separate
bibliography processor

 

What do you mean with “creating a separate bibliography processor”?

 

Also, I’m very much interested in the bibliographic infrastructures, so if
there’s anything where I might be of any help, count me in.

 

Best,

Denis

 

Von: Jean-Pierre Delange via ntg-context <[email protected]> 
Gesendet: Dienstag, 18. August 2026 13:15
An: [email protected]
Cc: Jean-Pierre Delange <[email protected]>
Betreff: [NTG-context] Re: bibliography with certain canonical reference

 

Hi Hraban,

Yes, I think this is a very reasonable suggestion.

I am currently writing several chapters on bibliography for ANSS-CE, and I
have in fact just completed Draft No. 1 of that part. This work led me to
test context-sbl quite extensively. For the moment, it remains an external
module, and these tests also brought me into contact with its author, Joe
McCollum, as well as with Kirk Lowery, who has considerable experience with
biblatex and complex bibliographic modelling.

There seem to be two related questions here.

First, I agree that integrating the SBL module into the ConTeXt distribution
could be a very good thing. At the same time, my recent tests suggest that
there is still a little work to do before the module can really be
considered optimal. I have found a few small points that could be improved,
especially in some of the less common cases involving ancient texts,
canonical references, multilingual material, and related bibliographic
structures.

Whether context-sbl should become part of the distribution is of course
something for Hans and Joe to decide. If that is not desirable, then
restructuring the repository so that it can be installed and updated as a
normal ConTeXt module would already be a substantial improvement.

There is also, I think, a second and more general direction worth exploring.
LMTX now provides very powerful facilities for Unicode, scripts, language
handling and bidirectional typesetting. It might therefore be possible to
make better use of these native capabilities for genuinely complex
bibliographies — complex not because bibliography is conceptually exotic,
but because it is never entirely simple to typeset a single bibliography
containing, for example, Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, English, German,
Russian, transliterations and translations, while keeping the bibliographic
style itself coherent.*

I have begun experimenting in that direction as well, still within ConTeXt’s
native publications architecture rather than by creating a separate
bibliography processor. The idea is to distinguish, for example, the
original-script form of a title from its transliteration and translation,
while leaving ConTeXt/LMTX responsible for the actual script, font, language
and direction handling.

I would be happy to help test any reorganization of context-sbl, and I would
prefer not to fork Joe’s project independently without first discussing it
with him.

Best,
JP

* See here a PDF of such a test.

Le 17/08/2026 à 09:10, Henning Hraban Ramm a écrit :

Am 17.08.26 um 06:31 schrieb Jean-Pierre Delange via ntg-context: 



I use specifications such as APA or Chicago myself, and I think they are
very good tools for ordinary bibliographic work. But I would still encourage
you, when you have the opportunity, to experiment with | context-sbl|. 

SBL see  <https://github.com/jjmccollum/context-sbl>
https://github.com/jjmccollum/context-sbl 


Wouldn’t it make sense to include the SBL style in the distribution? 

If not: Could the author (or maintainer) please restructure the repository
so that we can make it installable as a module? 
(Of course we could fork and change it accordingly. I don’t really want to
do it myself, since I never needed a proper bibliography.) 


Hraban 
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