BIBFORMAT expects its data to be in UTF-8 format and will return its formatted data in UTF-8 format. If you need to encode or decode your data prior to or after using OSBib, do not use PHP's utf8_encode() and utf8_decode() functions. Use the OSBib functions UTF8::encodeUtf8() and UTF8::decodeUtf8() instead. Additionally, if you need to manipulate UTF-8-encoded strings with functions such as strtolower(), strlen() etc., you should strongly consider using the appropriate methods in the OSBib UTF8 class.