Biblatex: Where to put external abstract files?

Question

In §3.11.8 ("External Abstracts and Annotations") of the biblatex documentation, it says that it is possible to put abstracts in external .tex files rather than storing them in the .bib file directly.

To do this, it says you must name the .tex file bibabstract-citekey.tex, where "citekey" is the citekey for the associated entry in the .bib file.

The documentation does not say anything about where these external abstract files should be stored. I assumed it would be possible to keep them in a local texmf tree, but that seems to not be the case.

I've only been able to get the abstract to print when the bibabstract-citekey.tex is in the same folder as the main .tex file.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this the intended behavior?

Here's a three-part MWE:

main.tex

% arara: pdflatex
% arara: biber
% arara: pdflatex
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[
    backend=biber,
    style=reading, % a style that prints abstracts
    loadfiles=true % must be set to true for external abstract files
]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{biblatex-example.bib}

\begin{document}

\nocite{chomsky2013}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

biblatex-example.bib

@Article{chomsky2013,
  author                      = {Chomsky, Noam},
  doi                         = {10.1016/j.lingua.2012.12.003},
  langid                      = {american},
  pages                       = {33--49},
  title                       = {Problems of Projection},
  issn                        = {0024-3841},
  journaltitle                = {Lingua},
  date                        = {2013-06},
  editor                      = {Rizzi, Luigi},
  issuetitle                  = {Syntax and Cognition},
  issuesubtitle               = {Core Ideas and Results in Syntax},
  number                      = {1},
  volume                      = {130}
}

bibabstract-chomsky2013.tex

With the crystallization of the ``generative enterprise'' half a century ago, two concepts became salient: the initial state and final states of the language faculty, respectively, UG (the genetic component) and I-languages. Since then inquiry has gained far greater scope and depth. It has also led to sharpening of fundamental principles of language. At first, descriptive adequacy appeared to require rich and complex assumptions about UG. A primary goal has always been to overcome this deficiency. Core properties of concern have included compositionality, order, projection (labeling), and displacement. Early work assigned the first three to phrase structure rules and the last to the transformational component. Simplification of computational procedures suggests that compositionality and displacement (along with the ``copy theory'') fall together while order may be a reflex of sensorimotor externalization, conclusions that have far-reaching consequences. As for labeling, minimal computation restricts options to the few that have considerable empirical support.
\endinput

I'm only able to get the abstract to print when bibabstract-chomsky2013.tex is saved in the same directory as main.tex. It does not print when bibastract-chomsky2013.tex is saved in a local texmf tree (in my case, ~/Library/texmf/bibtex/bib/).

Answer 1

Since these are .tex files, biblatex will find the external abstract file so long as it is somewhere in <texmf>/tex/ (not <texmf>/bibtex/). Moreover, since these files are meant for use by biblatex, it would presumably make the most sense to put them in <texmf>/tex/latex/biblatex/.

And, for the sake of organization, you might as well create a dedicated folder for all external abstracts, such as <texmf>/tex/latex/biblatex/abstracts/.

So, if you put bibabstract-chomsky2013.tex inside <texmf>/tex/latex/biblatex/abstracts/, then biblatex will find and print the abstract correctly.

---

^{<texmf> is shorthand for a local texmf tree. How you set this up depends on your TeX distribution (TeX Live/MacTeX or MiKTeX). If you do not know how to set up a local texmf tree but would like to set one up, see Where do I place my own .sty or .cls files, to make them available to all my .tex files?}