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Information Retrieval Services (IVS-BM)

IVS-BM: Bibliographic Management

 

arrow_down What is a Bibliographic Management System?

arrow_down Which Bibliographic Management System is the right one for me?

arrow_down Resources & Tools

 

arrow_right A Comparison of Bibliographic Management Systems (by IVS-BM)

arrow_right A Comparison of EndNote X4, Reference Manager 12, ProCite 5 (by Adept Scientific)

arrow_right Recommendations for Word Processing Software Users (by IVS-BM)

arrow_right A short information sheet (PDF) on bibliographic management and some systems (by IVS-BM)

arrow_right The presentation (ppt / pdf) to the IVS-BM workshop "Bibliographic Management Systems - Introduction and Overview"

 

arrow_right The IVS-BM (see contact details at the end of this page) provides support and advice related to bibliographic management for staff and guests from all Max Planck Institutes. (support statistics 2008/2009)

 

arrow_right Information on BibSonomy | CiteULike | Connotea | EndNoteWeb | JabRef | Zotero

 

arrow_right Information on RefWorks
    Please note: MPG-wide RefWorks license not continued in 2010

 

arrow_right Information on EndNote | Reference Manager
   NEW! Information about  EndNote X4 for Windows  (by Thomson Reuters, producer)

 

 

What is a Bibliographic Management System?

Bibliographic management systems are basically database applications for storing and organizing literature references (e.g. search results from retrieval systems like OvidSP, Web of Knowledge or CSA Illumina).

 

Bibliographic management systems have several advantages over generic database software like Microsoft Access:

  • the database structure (i.e. the data fields and reference types) is already defined;
  • references from retrieval systems and other bibliographic software may be imported and converted into other formats;
  • PDF full text files (and other files) can be attached to the references so that the files are better organized.

Besides those basic features, most bibliographic management systems allow the creation of citations and lists of references according to various citation styles (e.g. MLA, Chicago, or a journal style like Nature) in word processing software like Microsoft Word, OpenOffice and/or LaTeX.

 

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Which bibliographic mangement system is the right one for me?

There are a lot of programs which are well suitable for the administration of personal literature databases.

 

For an overview of applications, see

arrow_right A Comparison of Bibliographic Management Systems

 

In general, when deciding on a bibliographic management system, one should have a look at the systems already in use by the institute or research group. To find out if your institute has a site license for EndNote and Reference Manager, see this list or contact your local computing center.

 

If you want to use a bibliographic management system for inserting citations into documents and formatting them in a specific citation style, you might want to choose a system that is compatible with your word processing software. See Recommendations for Word Processing Software Users for details.

 

Some bibliographic management systems are only offered for specific operating systems. EndNote, for example, is available for Windows and Mac, whereas Reference Manager is only available for Windows. JabRef and Zotero are platform-independent. Web-based systems like RefWorks, EndNote Web, CiteULike or BibSonomy run inside a web browser and are platform-independent too.

 

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Resources & Tools

  • Bib-it - a java-based open source bibliographic management system for BibTeX data, including a .bst style file generator via a graphical user interface (by Stein Strindhaug, Zian Choy and others)
  • BibTex4Word - a plugin toolbar for Microsoft Word for inserting and formatting BibTeX references (by Mike Brookes, Imperial College, London) - requires MiKTeX. See also the documentation on medicalnerds.com
  • BibTranslator - a web interface for Bibutils (by Christian Setzkorn, National Centre For Zoonosis Research, UK)
  • Bibutils - command line tools to convert different bibliographic formats (BibTeX, EndNote, RIS, etc.) into one another (by Chris Putnam, The Scripps Research Institute)
  • ISBN to BibTeX Converter - looks up ISBNs in Amazon, fetches the metadata and displays it in BibTeX (by Manas Tungare)
  • HubMed - an alternative search interface for NCBI PubMed which offers export of results in BibTeX, RIS, and other formats, direct export to RefWorks, and other useful features (by Alf Eaton, Nature Publishing Group)
  • MakeBST - a command line tool for creating BibTeX output styles, i.e. .bst files (by P. W. Daly, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research)
  • MPG Citation Linker - Apart from other useful features such as full-text access, library holdings, journal information, etc., the MPG-SFX menu (also accessible via MPG-SFX button buttons) is able to display a single reference in the bibliographic formats APA, BibTeX, RIS, Chicago, and MLA.
  • TeXMed - an alternative search interface for NCBI PubMed which displays results in BibTeX (by Arne Mueller, Cancer Research UK)

 

Please address inquiries to Melanie McVeigh, mcveigh@biochem.mpg.de, Information Retrieval Services,
MPI of Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Tel.: 089/8578-3822.

 

 

Last updated: 20.7.2010