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Bibliographic databases
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 8, 2007 at 08:01 AM
This is probably a question for Graham Smith, for whom I am not sure whether he still accesses this forum, but I’m posting it here as it might be of interest to others as well.
In the course of my recently resumed studies I will require some sort of bibliographic database. I am reluctant to use a dedicated product, such as Endnote, but the advantages are obvious; my university even provides as with an Endnote style file to use with the Harvard referencing system.
In the spirit of less CRIMP and more effectiveness through integration of specific tools, I am thinking of ways to integrate such a bibliographic database with my current setup, i.e. Brainstorm as a ‘short term memory’ / text processor and UltraRecall / Zoot as long term repositories of project info and reference material.
Has anyone done something similar, either with Endnote or other relevant products like Biblioscape? Ideally, I would like to keep my reference material in my current repositories linked to/from the dedicated bibliographical database.
I imagine that I could create the relevant bibliographic fields in a delimited Zoot database, but my experience with such customising is still very limited.
alx
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Apr 9, 2007 at 12:46 AM
Alexander, I probably should have put my post re Zoot here, rather than start a new thread. But in the Zoot thread post I have copied a very interesting post on using Zoot as the recipient of Library of Congress bib data.
Daly
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>This is probably a question for Graham Smith, for whom I am not sure whether he still
>accesses this forum, but I’m posting it here as it might be of interest to others as
>well.
>
>In the course of my recently resumed studies I will require some sort of
>bibliographic database. I am reluctant to use a dedicated product, such as Endnote,
>but the advantages are obvious; my university even provides as with an Endnote style
>file to use with the Harvard referencing system.
>
>In the spirit of less CRIMP and more
>effectiveness through integration of specific tools, I am thinking of ways to
>integrate such a bibliographic database with my current setup, i.e. Brainstorm as a
>‘short term memory’ / text processor and UltraRecall / Zoot as long term repositories
>of project info and reference material.
>
>Has anyone done something similar, either
>with Endnote or other relevant products like Biblioscape? Ideally, I would like to
>keep my reference material in my current repositories linked to/from the dedicated
>bibliographical database.
>
>I imagine that I could create the relevant
>bibliographic fields in a delimited Zoot database, but my experience with such
>customising is still very limited.
>
>alx
>
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 9, 2007 at 03:15 PM
Daly, thanks, no problem; actually I was the newby in question over at the Zoot forum! I think Robert Brown’s answer was well worth reproducing here.
alx
Posted by Graham Smith
Apr 14, 2007 at 12:23 PM
Alx,
>This is probably a question for Graham Smith, for whom I am not sure whether he still
>accesses this forum,
I am still here, just very hectic, and trying not to spend time crimping.
As regards Zoot, others have answered. However, I think a dedicated bibliographic databases is something you shouldn’t try and avoid. You can make it the pet program in Zoot and still feel as if you are running everything from Zoot.
Compiling bibliographies is a boring and tedious chore, even storing the data is tedious because different sources need different types of information stored and to set everything up in Zoot is not making the best use of time as you are still left with problems getting it back out.
So while I understand the desire to stick with what you have. I stongly advise getting a proper bibliographic tool. Not surprisingly, I have spent a lot of money on such programs with licenses for Endnote, biblioscape, papyrus, library master, citation, and a couple of others I can’t remember. But I am currently using Zotero and Jabref. Neither are perfect, but both a free, and useful. I love Zotero, but it still has some rough edges.
Graham
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 14, 2007 at 05:54 PM
Graham, many thanks; nice to hear from you. Our situations are rather similar I gather.
I decided to take your suggestion, as expressed by others at the Zoot forum as well, and go for a dedicated program. The advantage for me is that I have never gathered bibliographic data before, so any starting point will probably do.
I have downloaded a demo of Endnote and will try Zotero as well.
Thanks again
Alexander