Text before references, but after bibliography title with BibTeX

Question

How can I put some introductory text before the references in BibTeX, but after the bibliography title? I have found some reference to \bibintro, but it does not compile. I have tried with a fake reference, but it obviously has to start with many As ;)

Answer 1

Since you mentioned BibTeX in your question but tagged it with biblatex I will provide solutions for both:

Solution with BibTeX

Assuming you're using the article class you could redefine the thebibliography environment like this:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc {foo,
    author = {Foo, Francis},
    title = {All about Foo},
    year = {2011},
}
\end{filecontents}

\newcommand{\myprenote}{Here goes my text.}

\makeatletter
\renewenvironment{thebibliography}[1]
     {\section*{\refname}%
      \@mkboth{\MakeUppercase\refname}{\MakeUppercase\refname}%
      \myprenote
      \list{\@biblabel{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%
           {\settowidth\labelwidth{\@biblabel{#1}}%
            \leftmargin\labelwidth
            \advance\leftmargin\labelsep
            \@openbib@code
            \usecounter{enumiv}%
            \let\p@enumiv\@empty
            \renewcommand\theenumiv{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%
      \sloppy
      \clubpenalty4000
      \@clubpenalty \clubpenalty
      \widowpenalty4000%
      \sfcode`\.\@m}
     {\def\@noitemerr
       {\@latex@warning{Empty `thebibliography' environment}}%
      \endlist}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\nocite{*}
\end{document}

Solution with biblatex

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[
    style=authortitle,
    backend=biber,
]{biblatex}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book {foo,
    author = {Foo, Francis},
    title = {All about Foo},
    year = {2011},
    location = {Footown},
}
@book {bar,
    author = {Bar, Bernie},
    title = {Barstory},
    year = {2000},
    location = {Barcity},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}


\begin{document}
\defbibnote{myprenote}{Here goes my text.}
\printbibliography[prenote=myprenote]
\nocite{*}
\end{document}