citeproc-php is under new management!

The PHP library that renders article citations in Open Journal Systems (OJS) will change maintenance hands from the library’s creator, Sebastian Böttger, to PKP.

What does citeproc-php do?

For those of you unfamiliar, citeproc-php is the server-side library that takes raw article metadata (author names, titles, publication dates, DOIs) and transforms it into formatted citations using Citation Style Language (CSL) styles including APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, and more.

In OJS, this library works behind the scenes of the Citation Style Language plugin. When a reader clicks “How to Cite” on an article page, or when a journal manager selects a citation style under Settings, citeproc-php generates the formatted output.

What will change?

For OJS users: Nothing immediate. Your citation displays will continue working exactly as they do now. The plugin settings in your dashboard remain unchanged.

For developers: The citeproc-php library has moved to the PKP organization under Github and PKP will take an active role in its steering and release management. Little else will change – PKP would like to continue working with the active contributor community already supporting the library.

For the broader audience: PKP has long benefited from, and frequently contributed to, 3rd-party Free and Open Source (FOSS) libraries like citeproc-php. As good FOSS citizens, PKP recognizes the value of a strong ecosystem of support and contribution; this move to formally maintaining citeproc-php is done in recognition of the need for material support for the tools we all rely upon.

The handover to PKP makes strategic sense since citeproc-php’s primary consumer is OJS and therefore PKP has a strong interest in keeping the library secure and updated.

The PKP team would like to thank Sebiastian Böttger for his excellent work supporting the scholarly publishing community for many years!

The handover discussion can be found in GitHub #200. The new pkp/citeproc-php GitHub page can be found here.