How to format your references using the The Library citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Library. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author
Hoogland, John L., ‘Prairie Dogs Disperse When All Close Kin Have Disappeared’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 339.6124 (2013), 1205–7
A journal article with 2 authors
Qian, Lulu, and Erik Winfree, ‘Scaling up Digital Circuit Computation with DNA Strand Displacement Cascades’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 332.6034 (2011), 1196–1201
A journal article with 3 authors
Aubret, Fabien, Richard Shine, and Xavier Bonnet, ‘Evolutionary Biology: Adaptive Developmental Plasticity in Snakes’, Nature, 431.7006 (2004), 261–62
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Harris, Robert G., Erica L. Herzog, Emanuela M. Bruscia, Joanna E. Grove, John S. Van Arnam, and Diane S. Krause, ‘Lack of a Fusion Requirement for Development of Bone Marrow-Derived Epithelia’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 305.5680 (2004), 90–93

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book
Klepinger, Linda L., Fundamentals of Forensic Anthropology (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006)
An edited book
Radu, Roxana, Jean-Marie Chenou, and Rolf H. Weber, eds., The Evolution of Global Internet Governance: Principles and Policies in the Making (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2014)
A chapter in an edited book
Kreutzer, Ralf T., and Karl-Heinz Land, ‘How the Social Revolution Is to Be Managed’, in Digital Darwinism: Branding and Business Models in Jeopardy, ed. by Karl-Heinz Land (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2015), pp. 99–128

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for The Library.

Blog post
Andrew, Elise, ‘New Nanoparticles Can Deliver Cancer Drugs And Monitor Release’, IFLScience (IFLScience, 2013) <https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-nanoparticles-can-deliver-cancer-drugs-and-monitor-release/> [accessed 30 October 2018]

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report
Government Accountability Office, Financial Audit: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Fiscal Year 2004 Management Representation Letter on Its Financial Statements (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 23 June 2005)

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
Horaist, David W., ‘Estimating Seed Bank Responses to Changing Environmental Conditions in the Louisiana Coastal Zone’ (unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana, 2015)

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article
Gustines, George Gene, ‘Where the Artists Have Superpowers’, New York Times, 15 July 2012, p. BU1

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal titleThe Library
AbbreviationLibrary (Lond.)
ISSN (print)0024-2160
ISSN (online)1744-8581
ScopeArts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Library and Information Sciences

Other styles