The last attempt EndNote made to support the Society for Biblical Literature style was around EndNote 8 – http://www.endnote.com/support/ensbl.asp – and it involved a nasty kludge which involved wiping out all of my custom reference types. Has there been any attempt to rework the style using the capabilities of modern EndNote and allowing a less dangerous mode of installation? In addition to being a query, this is a request for such a thing.
I recommend you make this request directly to the folks at Endnote via this webpage.
I looked at some of the information available on line, and it seems to be very complicated and there is a footnote option but also says that some times one should use a (author year). I have never seen more confusingly written author instructions than this one! Basically it appears to be based on the Chicago Manual, and you might try that first. It also can be footnotes or the author-date system (like Chicago 16th A and B respectively).
I assume there must be a need for additional fields not normally used by other publications which required remapping the reference type tables? Inspection of those in the zip and comparing them to your already altered fields may allow you to modify your current table to include the other required fields. Someone who uses this style might be able to specify what those are, rather than the wholesale replacement strategy of overwriting the ref type table.
Leanne, thanks for taking the time to answer. I will send a note to EndNote, though from past experience they are not terribly interested in this kind of thing. I haven’t seen Chicago 16th supported, and it has been quite a while since that hit the shelves. As for your strategy w/r/t the reference types, I am not happy about the idea of having to go “under the hood” at all. I am technically knowledgeable in some things but not in others. The solution is a kludge, and they admit that it will be blown away the next time I upgrade… Given how much I paid for EndNote, I should be able to put a style file in the appropriate directory and have it “just work.” I am currently doing my SBL references by hand. I might as well not have bought the program. Once again, I appreciate your help. Perhaps if I back up the reference types file, I can poke around and see whether their “SBL style” corresponds to reality at all.
Chicago 16th A and B are available from http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp.