I'm wondering what bibliographical software people on this list are using. Last time I needed such software I used BibTeX, despite certain significant lacks. Now BibLaTeX looks very good. But with my last venture my publisher got kinda cranky about getting files in LaTeX, so I'm hesitant to go that route again.
I've been using the Mellel word processor because of its nice typography, sensibly structured files and pleasant interface. I got Bookends to go with it for bibliographical management, but I find it shockingly bad--introducing stray commas in bib entries and doing crazy stuff like rendering authors' names as "Smith, John" but editors' names (when there is no author) as "John Smith." Unless I just haven't figured out how to use it, I think it quite unusable.
So: what are the tech-savvy people on this list doing about bibliographical management? As medievalists we need software that handles edited books (with or without authors' names) gracefully, can handle translations, and can help with the complicated bibliographical situations we sometimes face in series like CCSL. It would be nice if it could produce a two-part bibliography ("primary works"/"secondary works"). For my own purposes, it would be nice if it ran on both the Mac and Linux, but I'd settle for Mac-only software if it would just work properly.
Peter Baker
Ever tried zotero? Available at http://www.zotero.org/ it lives as a Firefox extension. It's note as versatile as a dedicated bibliographical software but can do more then that and can prove valuable as an overall research tool.
I am also using jabref (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/), written in Java, open source and BibTex based. It's not exactly user friendly but quite powerful.
Best, Notis
On 28 Nov 2007, at 20:42, Peter Baker wrote:
I'm wondering what bibliographical software people on this list are using. Last time I needed such software I used BibTeX, despite certain significant lacks. Now BibLaTeX looks very good. But with my last venture my publisher got kinda cranky about getting files in LaTeX, so I'm hesitant to go that route again.
I've been using the Mellel word processor because of its nice typography, sensibly structured files and pleasant interface. I got Bookends to go with it for bibliographical management, but I find it shockingly bad--introducing stray commas in bib entries and doing crazy stuff like rendering authors' names as "Smith, John" but editors' names (when there is no author) as "John Smith." Unless I just haven't figured out how to use it, I think it quite unusable.
So: what are the tech-savvy people on this list doing about bibliographical management? As medievalists we need software that handles edited books (with or without authors' names) gracefully, can handle translations, and can help with the complicated bibliographical situations we sometimes face in series like CCSL. It would be nice if it could produce a two-part bibliography ("primary works"/"secondary works"). For my own purposes, it would be nice if it ran on both the Mac and Linux, but I'd settle for Mac-only software if it would just work properly.
Peter Baker
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (Spring 2005-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
I'm a developer on refdb (http://refdb.sourceforge.net/), which is not aimed at medievalists, per se, but is powerful and outputs in a variety of formats. "Cite-as-you-write" is still a bit weak (though it works well in XML). Because the outputs are XSL determined, problems like you discuss with eds. and commas are easily fixable.
It is a server based program.
-----Original Message----- From: dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca on behalf of Toufexis Notis Sent: Wed 28/11/2007 13:53 To: dm-l, MailList Subject: Re: [dm-l] Bibliographical software for medievalists
Ever tried zotero? Available at http://www.zotero.org/ it lives as a Firefox extension. It's note as versatile as a dedicated bibliographical software but can do more then that and can prove valuable as an overall research tool.
I am also using jabref (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/), written in Java, open source and BibTex based. It's not exactly user friendly but quite powerful.
Best, Notis
On 28 Nov 2007, at 20:42, Peter Baker wrote:
I'm wondering what bibliographical software people on this list are using. Last time I needed such software I used BibTeX, despite certain significant lacks. Now BibLaTeX looks very good. But with my last venture my publisher got kinda cranky about getting files in LaTeX, so I'm hesitant to go that route again.
I've been using the Mellel word processor because of its nice typography, sensibly structured files and pleasant interface. I got Bookends to go with it for bibliographical management, but I find it shockingly bad--introducing stray commas in bib entries and doing crazy stuff like rendering authors' names as "Smith, John" but editors' names (when there is no author) as "John Smith." Unless I just haven't figured out how to use it, I think it quite unusable.
So: what are the tech-savvy people on this list doing about bibliographical management? As medievalists we need software that handles edited books (with or without authors' names) gracefully, can handle translations, and can help with the complicated bibliographical situations we sometimes face in series like CCSL. It would be nice if it could produce a two-part bibliography ("primary works"/"secondary works"). For my own purposes, it would be nice if it ran on both the Mac and Linux, but I'd settle for Mac-only software if it would just work properly.
Peter Baker
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (Spring 2005-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
_______________________________________________ Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (Spring 2005-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Thanks for all the replies. After I read Laurent's post yesterday I looked at the Bookends format manager and was impressed by the flexibility--not enough, to be sure, but a start. But this morning Bookends decided it could not hook up my reference "Cunningham, 1966" to the CCSL edition of Prudentius (though it had done so many times before): this happens to me quite a bit, and the workaround is to unscan the whole document (essentially unlinking from the database) and scan again (regenerating all the citations and bib entries). After that it decided for unknown reasons that the best citation for a number of works which it had rendered correctly before was a space--so the in-text reference looks like "( 85)." I'm sure there's a workaround for this too, but I have no idea what it is, and I'm of the school that holds that software should Just Work without a lot of kerfuffle. BibTeX, though inadequate in several ways (I'll spare everyone the rant), Just Worked. I won't go on with a tool that puts me through that kind of thing.
I'll have a look at zotero, jabref and refdb next--but I might end up with biblatex in the end. Certainly for anyone committed to the TeX family of tools it looks terrific.
Peter
O'Donnell, Dan wrote:
I'm a developer on refdb (http://refdb.sourceforge.net/), which is not aimed at medievalists, per se, but is powerful and outputs in a variety of formats. "Cite-as-you-write" is still a bit weak (though it works well in XML). Because the outputs are XSL determined, problems like you discuss with eds. and commas are easily fixable.
It is a server based program.
-----Original Message----- From: dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca on behalf of Toufexis Notis Sent: Wed 28/11/2007 13:53 To: dm-l, MailList Subject: Re: [dm-l] Bibliographical software for medievalists
Ever tried zotero? Available at http://www.zotero.org/ it lives as a Firefox extension. It's note as versatile as a dedicated bibliographical software but can do more then that and can prove valuable as an overall research tool.
I am also using jabref (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/), written in Java, open source and BibTex based. It's not exactly user friendly but quite powerful.
Best, Notis
On 28 Nov 2007, at 20:42, Peter Baker wrote:
I'm wondering what bibliographical software people on this list are using. Last time I needed such software I used BibTeX, despite certain significant lacks. Now BibLaTeX looks very good. But with my last venture my publisher got kinda cranky about getting files in LaTeX, so I'm hesitant to go that route again.
I've been using the Mellel word processor because of its nice typography, sensibly structured files and pleasant interface. I got Bookends to go with it for bibliographical management, but I find it shockingly bad--introducing stray commas in bib entries and doing crazy stuff like rendering authors' names as "Smith, John" but editors' names (when there is no author) as "John Smith." Unless I just haven't figured out how to use it, I think it quite unusable.
So: what are the tech-savvy people on this list doing about bibliographical management? As medievalists we need software that handles edited books (with or without authors' names) gracefully, can handle translations, and can help with the complicated bibliographical situations we sometimes face in series like CCSL. It would be nice if it could produce a two-part bibliography ("primary works"/"secondary works"). For my own purposes, it would be nice if it ran on both the Mac and Linux, but I'd settle for Mac-only software if it would just work properly.
Peter Baker
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (Spring 2005-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server:
http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm
Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options:
http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (Spring 2005-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (Spring 2005-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
After much struggling with BibTeX (which seems unusable to me if you happen to cite non-English titles or can't use the few standard bibliographic styles that come with it), I've settled for Bookends. I agree with you that it's not perfect, but I haven't found better and I'm pretty sure that you would see a substantial improvement with a few changes in the bibliographical format(s) that you use (in the menu bar: Biblio > Formats Manager > Formatting Options). The codes are somewhat cryptic and the manual isn't exactly helpful, but I can help you offlist if you need and are willing to give Bookends a second chance.
Laurent
On Nov 28, 2007 9:42 PM, Peter Baker psb6m@virginia.edu wrote:
I'm wondering what bibliographical software people on this list are using. Last time I needed such software I used BibTeX, despite certain significant lacks. Now BibLaTeX looks very good. But with my last venture my publisher got kinda cranky about getting files in LaTeX, so I'm hesitant to go that route again.
I've been using the Mellel word processor because of its nice typography, sensibly structured files and pleasant interface. I got Bookends to go with it for bibliographical management, but I find it shockingly bad--introducing stray commas in bib entries and doing crazy stuff like rendering authors' names as "Smith, John" but editors' names (when there is no author) as "John Smith." Unless I just haven't figured out how to use it, I think it quite unusable.
So: what are the tech-savvy people on this list doing about bibliographical management? As medievalists we need software that handles edited books (with or without authors' names) gracefully, can handle translations, and can help with the complicated bibliographical situations we sometimes face in series like CCSL. It would be nice if it could produce a two-part bibliography ("primary works"/"secondary works"). For my own purposes, it would be nice if it ran on both the Mac and Linux, but I'd settle for Mac-only software if it would just work properly.
Peter Baker
Digital Medievalist Project Homepage: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org Journal (Spring 2005-): http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm RSS (announcements) server: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/rss/rss2.cfm Wiki: http://sql.uleth.ca/dmorgwiki/index.php Change membership options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l Submit RSS announcement: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/newitem.cfm Contact editorial Board: digitalmedievalist@uleth.ca dm-l mailing list dm-l@uleth.ca http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l
-
Laurent Brun -
O'Donnell, Dan -
Peter Baker -
Toufexis Notis