 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Natural Science Forum / Physics / Optics / July 2008Personal journal paper database?
I have an ever-expanding folder of pdf documents, which are named as I would reference them in a paper (Author1 AB, Author2 CD, ''Title', Journal (Vol) No pp (year) ), but I'm wondering whether there is database software available for the personal user (not a library or institution) which would allow me to find one of my papers by keyword, for example. Any other suggestions on how file/store/reference journal papers? TIA > I have an ever-expanding folder of pdf documents, which are named as I would > reference them in a paper (Author1 AB, Author2 CD, ''Title', Journal (Vol) [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > TIA Try listing them in an Excel spreadsheet with hyperlinks to each file I've been searching for the same thing. One member of my group uses Endnote which I believe we get through our university's licensing system. He says it required some configuration on his part to get it to operate like you described, but it makes filing and searching for papers immensely easier. All he does is type in a keyword and it displays related documents on the screen. I also believe that he keeps all the PDF's in one folder so that he doesn't have to manually file them in an appropriate place. Kyle > I've been searching for the same thing. One member of my group uses > Endnote which I believe we get through our university's licensing [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Kyle I use BibteX and a Bibtex-sharing site called CiteULike. There are BibTeX-to-Word converters available for the non-LaTeX crowd. Cheers, Phil Hobbs In article <73eeb01e-1fcb-41b6-a207-0d4e33706d04@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, > I've been searching for the same thing. One member of my group uses > Endnote which I believe we get through our university's licensing [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Kyle Yes, I would say that EndNote is a very good choice. I've been using it for decades; my primary database has 3900 books, journal articles, and other types of publications listed in it. You can have multiple libraries, e.g. a separate library for for all your references on some specialized topic that you don't want to have cluttering your primary library. The program has what I'd call a friendly (and customizable) user interface and responds instantly to any kind of search. It has all kinds of useful display, formatting and other capabilities, and is highly customizable if you want to dig into its more esoteric features. After some initializing you can search web databases directly from within it, and download selected references from these databases (download the detailed citations, that is, not the full articles) directly into it. There is also a provision (which I've not yet used) to have it link from a citation in your database to a PDF file in your HD. I've never had it do any kind of destructive actions that caused loss of data The only downside is that its fairly complex structure and set of capabilities means there is something of a learning curve for learning to use its more arcane capabilities. [And I've been told that the internal structure of its libraries is standard SQL, so that SQL experts -- which I'm not -- can dig into the same libraries if they want or need to.] > I have an ever-expanding folder of pdf documents, which are named as I would > reference them in a paper (Author1 AB, Author2 CD, ''Title', Journal (Vol) [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > TIA JabRef (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/) sounds like what you are looking for. free (& Free), multiplaform, targeted at scientific papers. Best regards, oliv > I have an ever-expanding folder of pdf documents, which are named as I would > reference them in a paper (Author1 AB, Author2 CD, ''Title', Journal (Vol) > No pp (year) ), but I'm wondering whether there is database software > available for the personal user (not a library or institution) which would > allow me to find one of my papers by keyword, for example. > Any other suggestions on how file/store/reference journal papers? The two classic reference database software tools are EndNote and bibtex. EndNote is commercial (and Win and Mac only?), bibtex is free and multiplatform, but, by itself, not so user friendly. If you want to use the database to automatically format references for you when you write, then your choice of writing tools will influence database software: if you write in MSWord, then use EndNote, and if you write with latex, then use bibtex. There are various GUI frontends available for bibtex databases, many or most of them free. A bibtex database itself is just a plain text file, so you can read it, search it, etc., on pretty much any platform using a text editor, whether or not latex/bibtex or a GUI frontend are installed. If you don't want to do automatic referencing when writing, then pretty much any database should do. Have a "keywords" field, and a field for the local filename or path+filename. Perhaps fields for url or doi? Custom fields are trivially added in bibtex, but perhaps not in a particular GUI frontend. It can be useful to have a field for the abstract, and for your own summary of the paper. How easy is it to use custom fields in EndNote? I started off with an html file, with links to the pdf documents. This was OK to maintain by hand, in a text editor, until the number exceeded a thousand. Then it was time for a proper database (and which can generate an html file with links, which can be convenient for browsing). The sooner you start using a database, the easier it is. I recommend shorter filenames; I use authorYEARjaVOL.pdf or similar, where "ja" is an abrreviation of the journal title (eg, "pra", "prl").  SignatureTimo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/ E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html > I have an ever-expanding folder of pdf documents, which are named as I would > reference them in a paper (Author1 AB, Author2 CD, ''Title', Journal (Vol) [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > TIA I use EndNote, which several other posters have already mentioned. However, if you're looking for something free, you might want to take a look at Zotero, http://www.zotero.org/, a Firefox plugin. I haven't switched, at least not yet, but I'm giving it some thought, especially if EndNote ever quits on me. At least superficially, Zotero seems similar to EndNote. Bob Pownall Thanks to everyone for their input. I had no idea there was so much to choose from! For starters I have downloaded Zotero, mainly because I am a Word user (although under some pressure to convert to TeX), and because I really like its ability to pick up references from a web page. > I have an ever-expanding folder of pdf documents, which are named as I would > reference them in a paper (Author1 AB, Author2 CD, ''Title', Journal (Vol) [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > TIA I've been playing with "Papers 1.8", which was recommended on page 40 of the August 2008 issue of Macworld magazine. I don't have an opinion just yet. The review is at http://www.macworld.com/3644, and the company is at http://mekentosj.com/papers. Joe Gwinn > I have an ever-expanding folder of pdf documents, which are named as I would > reference them in a paper (Author1 AB, Author2 CD, ''Title', Journal (Vol) [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > TIA I use Windows Desktop Search from Microsoft with the iFilter for pdf plug in. All free an incredible fast. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.