[Tex/LaTex] creating a new bibtex entry type

bibtex

I've been using for bibtex for a few years now, and I've finally reached the point where I am fed up with the fact that the "book" entry does not allow for both an editor and an author, and the fact that "translator" is not a valid data entry type (so far as I know). I regularly work with books that are either editions or translations of medieval manuscriptions, and I'd like to be able to, e.g., do the following:

@book{SpWi95,
  year={1995},
  author={Richard Brinkley},
  editor={Spade, Paul Vincent and Gordon A. Wilson},
  title={Richard Brinkley's Obligationes: A Late Fourteenth Century 
Treatise on the Logic of Disputation},
  series={Beitr\"age zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des 
Mittelalters, neue Folge},
  volume={43},
  address={M\"unster i.\ W.},
  publisher=Aschendorff}
}

But I haven't been able to find instructions on how to create a new type of bib entry (called something like "edbook" or maybe "transbook").

Or is there another way that things like this should be handled that I haven't been clever enough to find google in more than a year's worth of searching?

Best Answer

New entry types or extra entry fields won't help unless they are recognized by the bibliography style. So you either need to define a new style or use an existing style that offers the features you want.

In the entry you provided, for example, the bibliography style should output both the author and editor fields for the entry type book. The achicago style/package (manual) bundled with frankenstein recognizes a number of additional fields for book entries (see below). There may be other bibtex-based styles/packages that offer similar features. Alternatively, you could follow Marco's suggestion and make the switch to biblatex.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{achicago}
\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{spwi95,
  year={1995},
  author={Brinkley, Richard},
  editor={Spade, Paul Vincent and Wilson, Gordon A.},
  title={Richard Brinkley's Obligationes: A Late Fourteenth Century Treatise on the Logic of Disputation},
  series={Beitr\"{a}ge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, neue Folge},
  volume={43},
  address={M\"{u}nster i. W.},
  publisher={Aschendorff},
  flanguage={Language},
  translator={Lastname, Firstname}}
\end{filecontents}

\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\bibliographystyle{achicago}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

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