Re: variable question

For XSLT 2.0, I think I'd turn the reftype template into a function
instead, since it just returns a string. I'd keep the title-before
template as a template since it might return some XML when you revise
it in the future. So it would look more like:

<xsl:template match="mods:titleInfo[not(@type='abbreviated')]"
              mode="bibliography">
  <span class="{if (../mods:relatedItem[@type = 'host'])
                then 'title'
                else 'title italic'}">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="title-before"/>
   	<xsl:apply-templates select="mods:title"/>
   	<xsl:apply-templates select="mods:subTitle"/>
   	<xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="title-after"/>
  </span>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="mods:titleInfo" mode="title-before">
  <xsl:if test="mods:reftype(parent::mods:relatedItem) = 'chapter'">
    <xsl:text>"</xsl:text>
  </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:function name="mods:reftype" as="xs:string">
  <xsl:param name="relatedItem" as="element(mods:relatedItem)" />
  <xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test="$relatedItem/@type = 'host'">
      <xsl:variable name="issuance" as="xs:string"
        select="$relatedItem/mods:originInfo/mods:issuance" />
      <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="$issuance = 'continuing'">article</xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="$issuance = 'monographic'">chapter</xsl:when>
      </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:when>
    <xsl:otherwise>book</xsl:otherwise>
  </xsl:choose>
</xsl:function>