plume-bib: collection of BibTeX bibliography files

To obtain the bibliographies, run:

    git clone https://github.com/mernst/plume-bib.git

This is a set of BibTeX bibliographies. You can re-use them rather than having to re-type or download. Re-typing or downloading bibliography entries is a notorious source of errors. For example, even the ACM Digital Library often has incorrect capitalization, or gives a SIGPLAN Notices reference when the conference proceedings would be more appropriate.

Here are some other features:

• Short and long versions of names, locations, and dates for conferences, journals, etc. The short (abbreviated) version is convenient if your paper is nearing its page limit. Changing between the two versions only requires a tiny change to your LaTeX file (see below), and no changes to any bib files.
• Consistent naming convention for citation keys: last name of first author, followed by last initial of each other author, followed by year. This makes the citation more recognizable in your LaTeX source, and avoids duplicates.
• Searchable via the bibfind tool. For instance, bibfind keyword1 keyword2 displays all the bibliographies with all the keywords, either in the entries in the comments. (This is why there are no blank lines in the comments that abut some bib entries: the search tool considers each blank line to start a new entry. We may lift that restriction in the future.)

You can obtain the bibliographies by running the command git clone https://github.com/mernst/plume-bib.git but you don't need to -- see below for how to set your build system to automatically obtain and/or update a copy.

You can also set the PLUMEBIB environment variable to the location of your clone (such as a directory named ~/bib/), so that you will have just one clone on your computer rather than one clone for each paper you write.

USAGE

To choose the abbreviated (short) or unabbreviated (long) version of the bibliography strings, use one of these commands in your LaTeX file, depending on how verbose you want citations to be:

    \bibliography{plume-bib/bibstring-abbrev,...,plume-bib/crossrefs-abbrev}
or
    \bibliography{plume-bib/bibstring-unabbrev,...,plume-bib/crossrefs}

(Note that the cross references file needs to be the last entry in \bibliography.)

When using the bibliographies, add near the top of your LaTeX document:

    \usepackage{url}

This defines the \url command used in the bibliographies. To make URLs use a slightly narrower font (the regular tt font is very wide), use:

    \usepackage{pslatex}

or, to use a smaller font, use:

    \usepackage{relsize}
    \def\UrlFont{\smaller\ttfamily}

EDITING AND ADDING ENTRIES

Changes, corrections, and additions are welcome.

When adding new bibliography entries, please create an entry in crossrefs.bib for conferences, and create bibliography strings in bibstring-master for journal/institution names and abbreviations.

For consistency, please start each new bibliography entry with "@" in the first column, and end the entry with "}" on its own line.

If you make changes but you lack write access to the Git repository at https://github.com/mernst/plume-bib, then please submit a pull request, or email a patch (a diff file) with your changes to Michael Ernst mernst@cs.washington.edu. Thanks for your contributions!

SETUP -- if you use a Makefile to process your paper

1. Add "plume-bib" as a dependency for the rule that calls bibtex; for example, make "plume-bib" a dependency for the myfile.bbl target. If no rule calls bibtex, you can skip this step.
2. Add "plume-bib-update" as a dependency of your default target (such as "all").
3. Add the following rules to your Makefile.

    plume-bib:
    ifdef PLUMEBIB
	    ln -s ${PLUMEBIB} $@
    else
	    git clone https://github.com/mernst/plume-bib.git $@
    endif
    .PHONY: plume-bib-update
    # Even if the plume-bib-update target fails, it does not terminate the make job.
    # However, to skip it, invoke make as:  make NOGIT=1 ...
    plume-bib-update: plume-bib
    ifndef NOGIT
	    -(cd plume-bib && git pull && make)
    endif

Alternately, if you prefer a copy of the plume-bib files (not a clone of its repository), you can periodically run this target:

plume-bib-update:
	(cd ~/tex/plume-bib && git pull && make)
	rsync -a --delete --exclude=.git ~/tex/plume-bib/ plume-bib/

SETUP -- non-Makefile version

If you have previously cloned plume-bib and set the PLUMEBIB environment variable, there is nothing to do. Otherwise, run this command:

    cd; git clone https://github.com/mernst/plume-bib.git plume-bib

Then, set the PLUMEBIB environment variable to $HOME/plume-bib and add the "plume-bib" directory to your BIBINPUTS environment variable.

bash syntax:

    export PLUMEBIB=$HOME/plume-bib
    export BIBINPUTS=.:${PLUMEBIB}:..:

SETUP -- miscellaneous details

For the bibfind command, see https://github.com/mernst/uwisdom/blob/wiki/README.adoc . The bibfind command uses the bibroot file in the plume-bib directory.

If you wish to have only a single copy of the bibliographies on your computer, you can clone the repository just once and set the PLUMEBIB environment variable. Then your Makefile will create (or you can make by hand) a symbolic link from any directories where you are writing a paper.

Note for miktex users: The bibtex that is supplied with miktex (the popular Windows implementation) does not support the BIBINPUTS variable. You need to modify the miktex configuration. In file ...\miktex\config\miktex.ini, edit this entry:

    Input Dirs=searchpath
    (search path for BibTeX input files -- both databases and style files).

INVOKING BIBTEX: crossref and -min-crossrefs=9999

plume-bib's .bib files use @crossref. To avoid outut like

    [1] Brun et al.  Paper title.  In [2].
    [2] Proceedings of ESEC/FSE 2011.  Szeged, Hungary, Sep. 7--9, 2011.

you need to pass the -min-crossrefs=9999 command-line option to BibTeX; for example:

    bibtex -min-crossrefs=9999 mypaper

LICENSE

Uses the Creative Commons Attribution ("CC-BY") license. See file LICENSE.