Citation style examples

This page demonstrates how URN identifiers render with different pybtex citation styles. All examples use the same set of BibTeX entries with urn fields.

Alpha style

The alpha style generates labels from the author name and year (e.g., [Sav23]).

This is the style used throughout this documentation (bibtex_default_style = "alpha").

[Aut23]

Test Author. Example of url-to-urn promotion. 2023. URN:NBN:fi:example-promoted.

[dV20]

Jan de Vries. Persistent identifiers in the dutch national library system. Journal of Library Metadata, 20:100–115, 2020. URN:NBN:nl:ui:25-f930e584-2.

[Han22]

Lars Hansen. National bibliography management in norway. In IFLA World Library Congress. 2022. URN:NBN:no:nb:bibsys-12345.

[Hub23]

Franz Huber. Digitale langzeitarchivierung in österreich. Technical Report, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 2023. URN:NBN:at:at-onb:1-12345.

[Knu86]

Donald E. Knuth. The \TeX book. Computers & Typesetting, 1986.

[Kor19]

Pekka Korhonen. Urn-based resource management in finnish libraries. In Nordic Digital Library Conference. 2019. URN:NBN:fi:example-20190101.

[Lin21]

Anna Lindgren. Advances in superconducting qubit architectures. PhD thesis, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2021. URN:NBN:se:kth:diva-12345.

[Mul22]

Max Müller. Einführung in die Quanteninformatik. Springer, 2022. URN:NBN:de:101:1-2022010112345.

[Sav23]

Niko Savola. Design and modelling of long-coherence qubits using energy participation ratios. Master's thesis, Aalto University, 5 2023. URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202305213270.

Plain style

The plain style uses numbered labels in order of appearance (e.g., [1], [2]).

[1]

Test Author. Example of url-to-urn promotion. 2023. URN:NBN:fi:example-promoted.

[2]

Jan de Vries. Persistent identifiers in the dutch national library system. Journal of Library Metadata, 20:100–115, 2020. URN:NBN:nl:ui:25-f930e584-2.

[3]

Lars Hansen. National bibliography management in norway. In IFLA World Library Congress. 2022. URN:NBN:no:nb:bibsys-12345.

[4]

Franz Huber. Digitale langzeitarchivierung in österreich. Technical Report, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 2023. URN:NBN:at:at-onb:1-12345.

[5]

Donald E. Knuth. The \TeX book. Computers & Typesetting, 1986.

[6]

Pekka Korhonen. Urn-based resource management in finnish libraries. In Nordic Digital Library Conference. 2019. URN:NBN:fi:example-20190101.

[7]

Anna Lindgren. Advances in superconducting qubit architectures. PhD thesis, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2021. URN:NBN:se:kth:diva-12345.

[8]

Max Müller. Einführung in die Quanteninformatik. Springer, 2022. URN:NBN:de:101:1-2022010112345.

[9]

Niko Savola. Design and modelling of long-coherence qubits using energy participation ratios. Master's thesis, Aalto University, 5 2023. URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202305213270.

Comparison: with and without URN

Entries with a urn field get a hyperlinked identifier appended. Entries without one render as standard references. Compare the entries above — for instance, Knuth86 has no URN and appears as a plain reference, while all other entries show a clickable URN link.

Available styles

In addition to the two styles shown above, the following pre-built styles are available:

Style name	Base style	Description
urn_alpha	alpha	Author-year labels, sorted alphabetically
urn_plain	plain	Numbered labels, sorted alphabetically
urn_unsrt	unsrt	Numbered labels, in citation order
urn_unsrtalpha	unsrtalpha	Author-year labels, in citation order

All styles append a hyperlinked URN identifier to entries that have a urn field. When using the Sphinx extension, any pybtex style (including third-party ones) is automatically wrapped with URN support.

Special behaviors

Auto-deduplication

The entry Korhonen19 has both a urn field and a url field pointing at the same Finnish URN resolver. The plugin automatically suppresses the redundant URL, so only the URN hyperlink appears.

URL promotion

The entry UrlPromotion23 has no urn field, but its url points to https://urn.fi/…. The plugin automatically promotes this URL and formats it as a URN hyperlink.