NOTE: This article describes new functionality that is NOT YET ACTIVE on mindat.org but will be very soon. It is posted so you can prepare for the changes once they become live.


Adding or editing references for items on mindat.org has changed (as of May 2023). The new system is far more powerful.

You can either watch this video, or read below!





Terminology

First, let's explain the terminology we are using for storing items.

A reference in our terminology is a record that indicates a reference item. Here is an example of a reference:

Raimondi, A. (1878) Minéraux du Pérou - Catalogue raisonné d’une collection des principaux types minéraux de la République. A. Chaix Et Cie, Paris. 336pp.

This is a record that points to our page with details on this particular book and, in this case, includes a PDF of the record itself.

A citation, in our terminology, is a record that links a reference to a particular entry on mindat - whether it is a mineral, locality or other page. This may point to a particular page, or range of pages, within the reference.

For example, for the mineral sideronatrite, the citation from the 'Mineraux du Pérou' book is on page 233. Thus the citation record for that reference on the sideronatrite page will reference page 233.

Adding to a locality

Ok, let's go straight in. We want to add a citation to this book on the sideronatrite page (note: You might not have rights to edit mineral pages, but this procedure is exactly the same for adding a reference to a locality page)

Scroll down the edit page to find the references section:



Click the 'Add new Citation' button

Now you get a new dialog appearing. You won't see anything in 'Your Recent References' unless you've added a citation before.



we are going to paste 'Minéraux du Pérou' into the search box and you'll see automatically the results come up - in this case the result is listed and we could select it



Now we can enter the citation details. Let's in this case just mention it's on page 233 and add a comment "as 'sidéronatrite'" because the French spelling is used.



And now, once we save that, the reference is added. It's important to note that at this point the reference is saved and added to the record you don't need to save the locality page again (unless you've made other changes!)



What if I can't find the reference?

Let's create a bogus reference for a test

Freely, I. P. (2023) The discreditation of sideronatrite, Mineralogical Mistakes, 203-207

We'll copy the entire reference this time to search - this is usually the best way to do it.

Of course it doesn't find it, so we'll have to click 'Create New Reference'



And we end up with the Add Reference page.



Now, at this point there are two ways to add a reference, the easy (lazy) way, and the slower (better) way.

The Easy (lazy) way

The easy way is very easy. At this point we just click SAVE and then complete the citation as before. The advantages of this are that you don't need to do any extra work, the disadvantages are that it's not in a structured format so the reference format is not necessarily going to look right, and it won't be searchable as easily. So if you really are in a rush you can do this, but remember someone else (possibly me) will have to come along later and fix these for you, so we'd really prefer if you did this:

The slower (better) way

Good! You're going to be entering this data in a structured format which means the reference string will be built automatically and it will be searchable. First you need to select the reference type, changing it from plain text to the correct type which, in this case, is 'Journal (article/letter/editorial)'.



At this point you should copy/paste bits from the 'Reference' field at the bottom to the correct places above. Don't worry too much if you don't have all the data to complete the form. For example, in this case we don't know the publisher, but that can always be updated later by someone else.



Now we've added this, we can save it, enter the citation details if needed, and save that.



Congratulations, we've added a new reference and a citation to it.

Now, things are a little more complex than this in that in an ideal world we should be building a hierarchical structure, where there is an entry for the entire Journal run, entries for the volumes under that, entries for the issues in each volume under that, and the article as a subentry of the issue (this assumes a volume/issue system but it could be just volumes or just issues) - for now just add them this way and we'll clean them up for you - we'll explain how to help with this later on.

I wish there was an easy way to make a reference properly!

I saved the best bit till last. You want add a current reference, the best way to find it is to use the DOI field.

For example, let's search for this DOI: 10.1180/minmag.2017.081.060



You see it immediately found the correct article (there are over 15 million records in the system already!) and we're good to go.

But what if it isn't?



In this case we don't have that particular article in the system. Let's add it!

Click 'Create New Reference'. Wait! Is that magic?



Yes, it really did fill it all in for you. Now hit save and you're good!

So... As you can see, working with the DOI records for articles is by far the best way to work with the system. DOI records exist for most modern academic articles, but you'll need to use the manual technique to add data for older articles or for articles from outside the academic realm.