Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!uwvax!rhesus!dubois From: dubois@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu (Paul DuBois) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Bibliographic software query - summary of responses Message-ID: <226@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu> Date: Wed, 22-Jul-87 13:51:40 EDT Article-I.D.: rhesus.226 Posted: Wed Jul 22 13:51:40 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jul-87 05:49:59 EDT Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center Lines: 190 Here are the responses I received to my query about bibliographic programs for the Macintosh. --- From: uwvax!seismo!decvax!ucbvax!opal.berkeley.edu!csaron (Aron Roberts) The one well-established Mac program explicitly designed for managing bibliographic databases and providing formatted output from them in a variety of professional styles (e.g. APA, MLA) is Personal Bibliographic System (PBS), which I believe was briefly reviewed in the January 1987 MacWorld. I also vaguely remember seeing a mention in that review of a new/extended version of PBS called Pro-Cite. We've had one person come into our lab who talked to us about his own experiences with PBS, and he indicated that he was very pleased with its capabilities. He had one (minor) complaint: at that time, it did not correctly sort authors' last names where some of the names contained characters from non-English European languages. -- Aron Roberts Tolman Microcomputer Facility 1535 Tolman Hall, University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 (415) 642-2251 csaron@opal.Berkeley.EDU CSARON@UCBCMSA.BITNET --- There is a program called Professional Bibliographic System that is done by someone in Anne Arbor. We have one person here using it and I have looked at it. It is very well done, powerful, and easy to use. The current version is not being sold because they are coming up with a souped up version sometime in September. You may still be able to get the current version but from what they have said the next one will be the program of choice. When we investigated gettin a biblio system PBS was by far the best package out there. Richard Crispin Dept. of Psychology Univ. of Waterloo Waterloo, Ont. Canada N2L 3G1 --- From: wyle%ethz.UUCP%cernvax.bitnet@BERKELEY.EDU I know of "biblio-mania" distributed by Kinko-Copies SOftware Exchange. I have tiny browser (a beta). There are (of course) the standard mac database systems whence one could build his own biblio s/w system. I personally use Unix refer(1) and family, and intend to port my system to my mac-II when it gets here. -- Mitchell F. Wyle | csnet or arpa: wyle%ifi.ethz.ch@relay.cs.net Instituet fuer Informatik | uucp: wyle@ethz.uucp ETH Zentrum / SOT | Telephone: 011 41 1 256 5237 8092 Zuerich, Switzerland --- From: Stuart StrandPersonal Bibliographic System is an excellent, expensive, specialized bibliographic database with complete facilities for formatted output and a wide If you have no complicated requirements for specialized documents (such as films, art, etc.) then any file manager that can handle sizable text fields is adequate for bibliographies, except for one problem. Several programs meet this requirement: MS-File, Record Holder, FileMaker Plus, etc. Some programs limit the length of fields to 255 characters: Reflex is one. The problem mentioned above is how to handle the list of authors. If the authors are combined into one field then the format must be rearranged each time a different format is required for the output list. If there are separate fields alotted each author, then searching becomes impractical and space is wasted. The solution to this dilema is to process the author list when formatted output is required. To my view the most important purpose of a bibliographic database is to integrate with my word processing. Is there anything sillier than manually numbering reference lists while writing on a computer? I have been using MS-Word (1.05 and 3.0) for scientific papers with some success for 2 years. However, MS-Word does not automatically number references for scientific papers. As you may know, footnoting in Word is not satisfactory for references that are cited several times in the text. So I wrote a program, which I call Scholar's Aid, that searches for codewords in the MS-Word text in the print-merge format that Word supports (for example, <<84str284>> would refer to a reference). Scholar's Aid compiles the reference list for the paper from references taken from a master bibliography in an MS-File database and sets up the reference list according to the format the user requires. Scholar's Aid supports several citation styles: in order cited, alphabetical, author-year, etc. It also will separately number figures, tables, equations, and two other list in the document. It will work without MS-File (i.e., renumber lists), but you have to set up your own reference list for input. Scholar's Aid requires a 512k Mac and really needs at least two disk drives to be practical. There are five steps to get a printout of the final draft: 1. Write document in MS-Word using print-merge variables for numbers of references, figures, etc.; 2. Start Scholar's Aid and search text for print-merge variables; 3. Open MS-File bibliographic database and find references cited in document using list saved in clipboard by Scholar's Aid; 4. Start Scholar's Aid again and choose formatting for reference list; 5. Open document in MS-Word and print using print-merge with control files written by Scholar's Aid to automatically provide numbering. (Note that MS-Word 3 for the Mac supports writing the final print-merged file to disk for further editing in addition to the printer). This may be a lot of work for very short documents with a couple of references, but think of the time saved when long documents are extensively edited and rearranged, when sections of other documents are pasted in; all without having to think about numbering of references, or equations, or figures. You or your secretary will never have to type a reference more than once. Need to revise a reference list for an article which must be resubmitted to a journal with a different format? No problem with Scholar's Aid. If this sounds like a sales pitch, I guess it is; but I also think that this is the type of assistance that microcomputer word processing was meant to provide to the scientist and scholar. With Scholar's Aid, MS-Word 3 becomes the most powerful, easy-to-use word-processing system available for production of referenced papers on any microcomputer. Scholar's Aid is shareware (at the moment!). It is available for downloading on many electronic bulletin boards: GEnie, CompuServe, ARPANET (in the Info-Mac archives). It may also be available from local electronic bulletin boards or user groups. You may also send me $5 for the shareware disk. It is distributed with a short tutorial documentation that will get you started. Pass it around to your friends. If you don't like it, just erase it.If you like Scholar's Aid and continue to use it, you must register as an owner for $35 (+$1 postage = $36 total, $41 total including disk). In return, I will send you a complete, 35 page, indexed manual. Thanks for your time, Stuart Strand, A0799@UWACDC --- Paul, I'm way behind in the news so I figureed that I would mail a response rather than post. An excellant package exists called Professional Bibliographic system. It allows various catagories (short book, long book, audio tapes, records ...) and then lets you enter all the relevant information. Sorting is done on key words, or you can scan through looking for any string of characters. It has an excellant Mac interface and has just a few bugs, which are listed in the manual. Overall a very good system. Data is stored in 3 files, which I doubt match any format. The bad news is that it is a product which costs (i'm not sure how much, but you can get it through any of the software houses.) And it is copy protected. Version 2.6 is the latest, and I would recommend it, if you are doing any real heavy biblio. work. (My wife did her research and thesis using it, no problems.) Norm Tiedemann Room IH 2G-331 ihnp4!ihlpa!normt AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, IL 60566 --- Paul DuBois UUCP: {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!rhesus!dubois | ARPA: dubois@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu --+-- | "My help does not come from the hills" | Psalm 121:1