citations shorter in the margin, detailed in the list

[Gerd]

I would like to realize the following idea in a book's literature
references:
Wherever necessary, the reference is named in the margin, but only in
an abbreviated form, basically to save space at places with lots of
citations. The full information is then provided in the reference
list, in an alphabetical order.

How do I realize the abbreviations and full list in one document -
preferably with one bib-file? It would already help to suppress titles
and DOIs, and abbreviate the authors' first names in the document
sections.

A different solution could be using citation numbers in the document
and provide two lists in the backmatter: a numbered list of
references, and an authors index referring to the page. With this I
also have both advantages, I can look up the citation, and I can also
find back an author after some time "where did she write about that
guy?". But I of course miss the point of having the information right
there, in the margin. Thus I prefer the first way.

Does anyone know a solution to this? If there is no other way, maybe a
good description how to write an own citation style, or something
similar pre-made? Thank you very much!

[Kevin Godby]

Hello.

Depending on what format you want the margin citations to have, you
can probably do it. The Tufte-LaTeX document classes currently use
the natbib package for citations right now. We redefine the \cite
command, but all of the other original natbib citation commands still
exist. So you could do something like:

% This goes in the preamble of your document (between \documentclass
and \begin{document}
\newcommand{\shortcite}[1]{%
\sidenote{\citealt{#1}}%
}

% A short example
A short citation\shortcite{Tufte2006} example.

Check out the natbib documentation (http://ctan.org/pkg/natbib) for
more possibilities.

--Kevin Godby