Literature Managing
——Make your materials more productive
By Zhao Yao
Litera. Managing is important
Assistance – Hundreds, even thousands of papers to read in order to complete a full research project
Efficiency – keep your papers in good order, in the way you want, fitting into your specific needs and habits.
Convenience – make the references cited in standard publishing form
An Overview
Commercial EndNote (by Institute for Scientific Info
rmation, ISI) Reference Maganer (purchased by ISI) NoteExpress (Chinese)
Free of charge Mendeley
Opensource JabRaf Bibus Zotero
Key FunctionsLocal: build reference database——to add, modify, search, backup, import……Web: groups to discuss and share papers
Family of Litera managing tools
An instance -
Mendeley was founded in Nov.2007, with its first beta version released in Aug.2008. Up to now, there are 40,000+ users along with 6+ million reference entries.
Free of charge,Multi-platform(Windows, Linux,Mac), both desktop tools and web services
Automatically build local reference database Search online to get full and accurate paper information Easy yet powerful functions to add, modify, annotate and import entr
ies Web platform to share and communicate based on user accounts
Features
Database building Search all local PDF fil
es, get paper information, and add into the database.
In addition, Mendeley can search online for more accurate information including keywords, abstract, web-links, through search engines like google scholar.
Usage and benefit View, highlight, annotate
the .PDF file, as well as add tags and notes
Sort the entries in a collection-based style
Advanced search for author, title, publisher, etc.
Batch-rename PDF files
Export entries in standard bibliography forms
Word Plugin, easy to use
Web services Online reference
database, synchronized with your local database.
New papers and new friends with real interactions.
Import both reference information and PDF files through webpage into online database.
Statistics and recommendation based on user accounts.
A comparison -
Firefox plug-in
One-key import from webpage, more a
ccurate and convenient
Better bibliography creating
Timeline function
Summary Still there’re many other reference managing tools available, eac
h one with its own features. As another example, Reference Manager combines database management with literature searching, without need to switch to an internet browser.
It’s better to choose from one’s own needs and habits. Mendeley is an outstanding choice for its wide functions and easy-to-use interface design, though it is not an opensouce software.
The ultimate purpose is to improve your research efficiency, and fun of course!