IVS-BM: Comparison of Bibliographic Management Systems - Organization
| Organization Indexing and retrieval of references was tested. |
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| EndNote v. X1 (Windows XP) |
References can be organized in groups. There is only one hierarchical level of groups (i.e. no sub-groups). A reference can belong to more than one group. There are no default fields for user indexing, but a custom field can be used to manually assign tags to references. The search function supports various operators and limits (<, >, case sensitive, exact match, etc.) in up to nine search fields. It is possible to search within the whole library or a single group, but not in multiple groups. Searching and replacing is a separate feature (Edit -> Change Text...). EndNote automatically generates three indices (Term Lists), by author, keyword, and journal. Additional indices from any fields can be created. However, index terms are not linked to their corresponding references, and different spellings are not merged into single terms. References can be sorted by any displayed field. |
| RefWorks tested in July 2008 with Firefox 3.0.1 (Windows XP) |
The folder organization in RefWorks is similar to the groups system in EndNote. User tagging is not supported by default either. RefWorks' search function has less features than EndNote and is limited to a maximum of four fields. In some fields truncation is possible, in others not. Searching multiple specific folders is possible. Searching and replacing is also a separate feature, Global Edit. RefWorks automatically generates three indices, by author, descriptor, and periodical (different spellings are not merged into single terms either). Sorting is limited to a selection of ten specific fields. |
| EndNote Web tested in August 2008 with Firefox 3.0.1 (Windows XP) |
References can be organized in groups similar to EndNote. There is only a Quick Search that searches in all fields of either all references or a single group. Searching and replacing is not supported, and there are no indices. References can only be sorted by Author, Title, or Year. |
| Reference Manager v. 11.0.1 (Windows XP) |
There are no groups or folders in Reference Manager. The only possibility for user indexing is to use a custom field. Searching is possible within any fields, in up to 15 fields simultaneously, connected with AND, OR, or NOT. The Search and Replace functionality is split into two features, Find/Replace for Non-Indexed Fields and Term Manager for the three indexed fields Authors, Keywords, and Periodicals. Lists of references can be sorted by any displayed field. (All fields may be selected for display.) |
| BibSonomy tested in August 2008 with Firefox 3.0.1 (Windows XP) |
For indexing, BibSonomy allows user keywords (tags) which are placed in the same data field as all other keywords. The keywords/tags are displayed in a tag cloud or in a list sortable by freqency. It is also possible to define supertags (relations) which combine subordinate tags. References (from all BibSonomy users who share them) can be retrieved via their tags, titles and authors, either by clicking on a tag in the tag cloud, or by clicking on a tag or author in another reference, or by entering a tag, title word, or author in the search interface or directly in the URL. When searching via search interface or URL, several tags, authors and/or title words can be combined to retrieve their intersection. There is also a search interface (mySearch) for searching tags with AND or OR operators and for simple title or author searches. However, other users' references cannot be retrieved with mySearch. Displayed reference lists are always sorted from latest to oldest and cannot be sorted by other criteria (only filtered by tags). While an unlimited number of references may be stored in BibSonomy, no more than ~80 references can be displayed in one list. |
| Zotero v. 1.0.7 with Firefox 3.0.1 (Windows XP) |
In Zotero there are groups (collections) as well as tags. The collections system is similar to EndNote etc. (i.e. no sub-groups). Like in BibSonomy, user tags are equivalent with preexisting keywords. Both are displayed together in an alphabetical list rather than a real tag cloud. All reference fields are searchable. The number of search fields is virtually unlimited; however, they may only be combined all together with either AND or OR, not both. Each search field supports truncation and additional operators like NOT, or > and < in numerical fields. There is no Search & Replace / Global Edit feature. The only index is the aforementioned keyword list (Tag Selector). Displayed references can be sorted by one (or several) of 16 fields. |
| JabRef v. 2.4 (Windows XP) |
JabRef offers static as well as dynamic groups (to which references are assigned automatically according to a previously specified query) that can be arranged in several hierarchical levels. User tagging is not supported by default. There is only a single search field, but complex queries for searching in several fields using AND, OR, NOT, are supported. A search & replace feature is also available. There are no predefined indices, but groups can be automatically generated for any data field. |
| Connotea tested in February 2009 with Firefox 3.0.6 (Windows XP) |
Tags are used for user keywords as well as keywords already contained in the reference. Used tags are shown in a list instead of a tag cloud. It is possible to search the tag list and retrieve references by selecting a tag. There is also a full text search feature for searching one's library. Tags can be renamed, but there is no search & replace feature. The list of references is sorted by the date they were added. There are no other sorting options. |
| CiteULike tested in April 2009 with Firefox 3.0.8 (Windows XP) |
For user indexing, as well as for keywords already contained in the reference, CiteULike uses tags, which are displayed in a tag cloud. It is possible to search the tag cloud and retrieve references by selecting a tag. This can be also achieved by clicking on an author name in a reference. There is also a tag cloud with author names, which works in the same way. Both references and PDFs stored in CiteULike can be searched with a simple full-text search feature. Queries can be entered directly as a URL, but a combination of search terms is not possible in URLs. There is no search & replace feature. The list of references is sorted by the date they were added. There are no other sorting options. |
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Last updated: 07.04.2009
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