[Tex/LaTex] Bibliography is empty

biberbiblatex

I've read most of the other posts on this, but their errors/solutions aren't the same and don't seem to work. Maybe I just need a simple explanation. Anyways,

Here goes:

\documentclass[letterpaper]{article}

%bibliography
\usepackage[style=mla-new,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{mli.bib}

%.bib file
\begin{filecontents*}{mli.bib}
@misc{ dream,
             keywords = {trans},
             title = { Dr{\"o}mde mig en dr{\"o}m i natt}, 
             url = {http://www.folkwiki.se/Musik/1890}, 
             journal = {FolkWiki}
}

@misc{ midna,
             keywords = {trans},
             title = {Midna's Lament}, 
             url = {https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/browse/series/TheLegendofZelda}, 
             journal = {The Legend of Zelda - NinSheetMusic},
             author = {Erich}, 
             year = {2006}
}

@misc{ polska,
             keywords = {trans},
             title = {Polska efter Pelle Fors}, 
             url = {http://www.folkwiki.se/Musik/860}, 
             journal = {FolkWiki}
}


\end{filecontents*}

\title{blah}

\author{me}

\date{}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\section{Bibliography}

\printbibliography[keyword = trans]{Transcriptions}

\end{document}

MikTex 2.9, I just updated most packages to resolve this issue, I know to run pdflatex then biber then pdflatex twice

I get the following issues [paraphrasing because it still produces a pdf without leaving the error list visible]:

  • hyperref package is missing, setting hyperref = false

  • keyword trans not found

  • empty bibliography

(and I'm using keywords because I have more bibliographies for other sections)

I'd appreciate any help!

p.s. Also quick question. How to cite songs in MLA using the .bib file (like with albums and stuff)? Thanks.

Best Answer

In the MWE no entries were cited. biblatex only shows entries in the bibliography if they were \cited explicitly or if they were added to the bibliography with \nocite (either via a blanket \nocite{*} that adds all entries available in the .bib files or a specific \nocite{key_1,...,key_n}). See Using BibTeX to make a list of references without having citations in the body of the document?.

The second issue is that biblatex-mla has no code set up to display @misc sources. The way the style handles these unsupported types means that there is not even the usual warning that biblatex would issue. See Use `misc` in biblatex-mla, Misc entry not appearing in bibliography, BibLaTex shows only book references and a few more.

The following MWE gives slightly better results. If you don't have to follow MLA style I would recommend not to use biblatex-mla until its development is picked up again and this particularity is resolved (in https://github.com/jmclawson/biblatex-mla/issues/7#issuecomment-52112933 the biblatex-mla developers explains his reasoning for not supporting @misc, but I think the way the support is disabled is quite dangerous, there is no warning or error message).

\documentclass[letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage[style=mla-new,backend=biber]{biblatex}
%\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@online{dream,
  keywords = {trans},
  title    = {Dr{\"o}mde mig en dr{\"o}m i natt}, 
  url      = {http://www.folkwiki.se/Musik/1890}, 
  journal  = {FolkWiki},
}
@online{midna,
  keywords = {trans},
  title    = {Midna's Lament}, 
  url      = {https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/browse/series/TheLegendofZelda}, 
  journal  = {The Legend of Zelda - NinSheetMusic},
  author   = {Erich}, 
  year     = {2006},
}
@online{polska,
  keywords = {trans},
  title    = {Polska efter Pelle Fors}, 
  url      = {http://www.folkwiki.se/Musik/860}, 
  journal  = {FolkWiki},
}
\end{filecontents*}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\nocite{*}
\begin{document}
\printbibliography[keyword = trans, title={Transcriptions}]
\end{document}

Note that \printbibliography[keyword = trans]{Transcriptions} does not print the bibliography with the heading Transcriptions, it just prints the bibliography and after that the word Transcriptions.

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