Getting origyear to work in biblatex

Question

I have just switched from natbib to biblatex, because I wanted to add translator entries to my bibliography. I am now trying to get origyear to work. Before my entry was like this:

@book{schaeffer1977traite,
    AUTHOR      = "Schaeffer, Pierre",
    TITLE       = {{Trait{\'e} des objets musicaux: essai interdisciplines}},
    YEAR        = {1977 (1966)},
    ADDRESS     = "Paris",
    PUBLISHER   = {{Editions du Seuil}}
}

but this is nasty and produces glitches with the closing parenthesis. So I tried instead

    YEAR        = {1977},
    ORIGYEAR    = {1966},

but the original year just doesn't show up. My import looks like this:

\usepackage[natbib=true,style=verbose-ibid]{biblatex}

I tried to simple create a biblatex.cfg file according to this article (biblatex says it's version 0.99d (TeX Live 2010).

But that creates an error, probably because I don't use the same bibliography style:

LaTeX error: \abx@macro@cite:labelyear+extrayear undefined.

Any help getting this work is appreciated.

Answer 1

According to section 2.2.2 of the biblatex manual, the origdate field is "[n]ot used by the standard bibliography styles". In the following MWE, I have redefined the date bibmacro (as used by the verbose style family) so that it will also print the contents of the origdate field if this field is defined. Note that a more general solution (one that works, e.g., also for the authoryear style family) would involve additional modifications.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=verbose]{biblatex}

\renewbibmacro*{date}{%
  \printdate
  \iffieldundef{origyear}{%
  }{%
    \setunit*{\addspace}%
    \printtext[parens]{\printorigdate}%
  }%
}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{schaeffer1977traite,
  author = "Schaeffer, Pierre",
  title = {Trait{\'e} des objets musicaux: essai interdisciplines},
  year = {1977},
  origyear = {1966},
  location = {Paris},
  publisher = {Editions du Seuil},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\nocite{*}

\begin{document}

\printbibliography

\end{document}