Bibliographic management software is Referral software designed to establish, store, sort and use bibliographic references of articles, books or even websites to facilitate the citation and to automate the production of bibliographies for various publications scientists
Principle of
operation
Bibliographic reference management tools are based on the
principle of data separation and formatting. Indeed, all the information and
data are stored in a database in separate fields (author, title, place of
publication,) which makes it possible to use it by applying for each text a
different and adapted formatting the constraints of publishing houses, research
institutions, journals etc. In concrete terms, the information stored in the
database is therefore, for example, as follows:
For your thesis you must for example apply the style of the
German standard DIN 1505-02:
For the publication of an article in a magazine, you are
asked to respect another particular style (here that of the journal
trajectories):
And for a presentation of a thematic bibliography of your
university, you must provide references in accordance with yet another style
(here that of the EHESS):
These three different layouts can be produced in just a few
clicks and seconds with a bibliographic reference management tool.
The features of bibliographic reference management tools
1. Feed the database
The tools allow you
to add bibliographic
records manually
retrieve records from
a library catalog
to import and export
bibliographic records
2. Work with bibliographic references
You can
Search and sort
records
Organize records into
folders and subfolders
Work with keywords in
the bibliography
Annotate
bibliographic records
3. Exploit bibliographic references
It is possible to
Generate on the fly a
bibliography of references selected according to different predefined styles
Integrate
bibliographic references into a word processor (Word / OpenOffice) to quote
references in the text
The different types of applications
1. Specific software
Software that installs on a personal computer and stores all
data locally. For example :
Endnote (paid software)
Jabref (free software)
Advantage: This solution guarantees independence from an
internet connection because all information is stored on a personal computer.
It is therefore possible to work on and with the data even without having an
internet connection.
Disadvantage: If one often changes working environment (on a
desktop computer, at home, a laptop, a computer at the library etc.), specific
software installed locally is not suitable, because the data is precisely
stored on a computer and remote access is not possible.
2. An online platform
An internet application that stores all data on a server.
Access is through a personalized account. For example:
Ref works (paying, inquire for a campus license from his
university)
Sign up for free
Advantages and disadvantages are reversed compared to the
locally installed software solution. The online platform allows optimal
synchronization for someone who works on several different workstations, but is
a disadvantage in case of work situation without internet connection.
3. Plugin / extension
in the Firefox browser
The application is an add-on module to install in the
Firefox web browser.
The zotero tool can nowadays be installed as standalone
software or as an extension for some internet browsers, especially Firefox.
Thanks to a custom account system on the zotero server, this tool combines the
advantages of the two previous solutions. The data is stored on a personal
computer, but is synchronized with a remote server which allows to use its
bibliographic references of any workstation while also having them locally on
his own computer.
Criteria of choice for a tool
For the practical work of our seminar, we have chosen zotero
as a working tool, but we encourage our participants to also check with their
university and research center about the tools and licenses available. Here is
a short list of criteria for choosing a tool:
Compatibility for automatic record retrieval with popular
catalogs of libraries and databases
Compliance with standard formats for import / export
Minimum desired features
The cost of software and possible access to campus licenses
through his university
The complexity / time of training to use
Personal work mode (on one or more computers)
Compatibility with its operating system (Windows, Mac,
Linux)
The variety / adaptability of bibliography styles
Automatic recovery, import and export
The first two criteria are undoubtedly the decisive criteria
and deserve to be briefly developed. Automatic retrieval of bibliographic
records from library catalogs and databases is fundamental. It can be done in
different ways.
1. A transfer function between the search tool and the
bibliography management tool
This is the case for zotero for
example: if the search tool is compatible, a function allows to recover in a
few clicks either a list of results or a single bibliographic record.
2. An export function in the search tool and an import
function in the bibliography management tool
The import / export feature is doubly important. Firstly, it also allows
automated retrieval of bibliographic records from a search tool (especially in
the catalogs of German library networks) to its bibliographic reference
management tool. The recognized computer formats are BibTex, Endnote, RDF, RIS;
some bibliography management tools also manage the MARC librarian format. If
the bibliography management software that we choose reads and exports in these
formats, we keep - secondly - also a freedom vis-à-vis the different software,
because we can change software at any time without losing references already
collected previously.
3. A remote database query function in the bibliography
management tool
Ref Works offers a
third way to automatically retrieve bibliographic records from catalogs,
bibliographies and databases: it is the bibliography management tool that acts
as a metamotor by directly querying resources via a Ref Works common interface.
By going through the protocol Z39.50, an interconnection protocol used in the
world of librarianship, we have in Ref Works access to the catalog of the BNF
for example, while a recovery of records of the BNF is not possible with zotero
. However, this search interface also has the disadvantage of all metamotors:
since the search is not performed in the interface of the resource in question,
but in an interface implanted above.
