From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 8 21:39:12 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 14AAF1065672 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 2009 21:39:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lordofhyphens@gmail.com) Received: from qw-out-2122.google.com (qw-out-2122.google.com [74.125.92.27]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA88A8FC14 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 2009 21:39:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lordofhyphens@gmail.com) Received: by qw-out-2122.google.com with SMTP id 3so1759196qwe.7 for ; Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:39:11 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=KRLFcJYEBytZe2hf9OGwvoYFbV8bFTDSYzfopELYYfc=; b=GHRNCf7mMxcbq/PUxB9QUzz/s+1n04EUTrR48plGq64Llu8oGJx5EhY2EGCyG5AjJ1 Bb8FMIdQj7hlPuF4iEaZZs933tfV/tziJc/O07cCyE5IOIEV3VAS6uS6laNbfzVg/phr qnF2kQ0IUpQFx3vooMlNbb0YJD2UuOXVGc0nY= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject :references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=DmA19r9vWyv5q2s3PXsaM+NB1rrULoOD4HKRvJgzSU5NV9qKdmAbEkqLkH94acawNy PCZUk3GDez3EgYTrFlVRHIbdj0zeoEhwICxGJ8HFKOCuqi/9Kdaa2uarUv10NEaegPt1 tviwL2PnNfOSVMAXX90WU5IFm6ZUZaYbQsuWY= Received: by 10.224.2.79 with SMTP id 15mr7306985qai.256.1244497150938; Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:39:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?131.230.191.52? (ee122.engr.siu.edu [131.230.191.52]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 6sm116085qwk.30.2009.06.08.14.39.09 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:39:10 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4A2D84F1.3090404@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:38:57 -0500 From: LoH User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (Windows/20090302) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Daniel Underwood References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: PDF inventory software X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:39:12 -0000 Daniel Underwood wrote: > I'm looking for a way to manage my personal collection of research > articles. Ideally I'd like some way to keep records on authors, > keywords, journals, and publication years of articles (PDF files) > downloaded onto my local drive. > > In the course of reading literature for research, it often happens > that I find myself wanted to return to something I have previously > read, but I only recall a few "things" about the article, often the > author and a keyword. Is there some inventory/database software (for > local use only) that can be easily used for this purpose? (The > closest things that comes to mind (conceptually) is "image collection" > software.) > > What are some of my options here? > > Thanks, > Daniel > > First thing that comes to mind is abusing BibTeX/LaTeX. Keep a BibTeX file (under version control for safety) or other LaTeX-based citation solution as a file on your desktop. If you're using articles from journals, you should be able to get the BibTeX versions of the citation information from general research portals like IEEEXplore or ACM's library (and many other places). For each one, add another field and add your local path (of the file referencing the article) to it. If you need to find something after that, grep the keyword or author's name with the option to display a couple lines up or down. A useful side effect is that if you know LaTeX (and it's a good skill to have), you have the citation information handy for easy inclusion in your own papers. With some work, that approach could probably be expanded to an GUI app. Like most things, it's a bit of up-front work and requires maintenance (mostly remembering to grab the cite info from documents as you add them to your collection). If you're going to be using any of them for citations, however, it's work you're already having to do. --Joseph Lenox