CTI Textual Studies Q & A

Bibliographic Tools

Q I am keen to share my bibliographies with colleagues and students by posting them on the Internet. Can you suggest packages which will support this?


AAnswers to this question depend on whether you want to publish a static list of references on a web page or whether you want to place a searchable database of references online. Firstly, rather than constructing your bibliography in a word proccessor and then saving it as an HTML file for export to the web, (which is of course an option), I would suggest that you compile and maintain your bibliographies using a specific bibliographic package, several of which are mentioned below. (These are sometimes referred to as personal bibliographic tools or managers.) These packages - which are essentially databases - are designed to take the time and tedium out of constructing bibliographies. The database holds all of your references and can generate bibliographies in different styles for different publications. It is also searchable, allowing the user to generate sub-groupings of references for course and acquisition lists very quickly.

All of the new developments in this area are about integrating the personal bibliographic tool with the internet (and with institutional intranets). Therefore all of the packages of note allow the user to export selected records in a range of styles as HTML files for posting to the Internet. EndNote 3.0, ProCite 4, Reference Manager 8, Biblioscape 3.3 , Citation 7, Library Master, Papyrus for Macintosh and Bibliographica 6.5 all offer this now-basic function.

However, you may wish to move beyond publishing a static list of references on a web page. You might want to allow users elsewhere in your institution, or indeed anywhere in the world, from any platform, to search and even to enter and edit references in your database via the Web. This could be an ideal solution for research groups sharing a common bibliographic database. Most of the packages offer networked versions which will allow for varying forms of protected access to your database within your local network. EndNote 3.0, ProCite 4, Reference Manager 8, Biblioscape 3.3 , Library Master and Bibliographica 6.5 all offer such functions. (Because of the problems that might be associated with access from outside of your institution we would recommend that you always talk such issues over with your local IT support personnel.)

Several of the packages allow for your database to be published on the Internet. Biblioscape 3.3 offers the "out-of-the box" solution, whereby a local PC attached to the Internet can operate as a web server offering Internet access to your references. Other packages - such as EndNote, ProCite and Reference Manager - require the additional purchase of the add-on Reference Web Poster to allow their databases to be posted on the web. As with locally networked versions, access can be password-protected and varied: read-only, enter new records only, edit existing records, and so on.

Other forms of integration between bibliographic tools and the Internet might be worth mentioning here. Most of the packages now allow for some form of searching of online bibliographic catalogues from within the bibliographic tool. References located can then be uploaded immediately to your personal database. The options and the catalogues available seem to be changing and expanding almost weekly, so the product web sites - listed below - are the best reference point here. Some of the packages currently require the additional purchase of BookWhere 2000 to allow them to search online library catalogues, whereas EndNote 3.0 has the relevant client - the Z 39.50 protocol - integrated into the tool and currently seems to offer the widest, free access to online catalogues. Additionally, most of the packages offer the ability to link directly to internet resources referenced in your database from within the tool, and some, such as ProCite allow for the automatic capture of web page URLs and titles into the bibliography.

Bibliographica 6.5: http://www.bibliographica.de/
Biblioscape 3.3: http://www.biblioscape.com/
BookWhere 2000: http://www.risinc.com/bw/bwprod.html
Citation 7: http://www.oberon-res.com/
EndNote 3.0: http://www.niles.com/
Library Master: http://www.balboa-software.com/
Papyrus: http://www.teleport.com/~rsd/
ProCite 4: http://www.risinc.com/pc/pcprod.html
Reference Manager 8: http://www.risinc.com/rm/rmprod.html
Reference Web Poster: http://www.risinc.com/rwp/rwpprod.html

Reviews of some of the products and issues mentioned here can be found at http://wkweb3.cableinet.co.uk/biblio/html/reviews.html and at http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/chorus/eresearch/index.html

(SS)


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HTML Author: Stuart Sutherland
Document created: 6 April 1999
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The URL of this document is http://info.ox.ac.uk/ctitext/enquiry/bib02.html