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Surviving the information explosion
Reference Manager version 8.0 I Many Consultants Ltd, 1997. f215.00 (single user), f625.00 (network version: five users;
‘concurrent user’ prices are available on request, email [email protected])
I can still remember that fateful day when I decided to move my literature database from a collection of cards onto a computer. Databases were then (early 1980s) PC ‘killer-applications’ and after all these years they are still killing me. At that time, and until quite recently, I had physical copies of over half of my database. Most of the references were typed in by hand or laboriously edited from database output files. Now, the rate of publication is so rapid and the volume so great that few of my references are stored as reprints or photocopies.
Volume of publication is not the only thing that has grown; the complexity and sophistication of computers and their programs has also developed. Take Microsoft’s latest word processor - on a 133 MHz laptop, Windows 95 and Word for Windows (Word 7) are big, slow to load, always reading and writing to the hard disk: they are the software equivalent of those huge 1950s Detroit gas guzzlers. Compared with the built-in word-processing software on handheld computers, such as Psions, they seem clumsy and crude. The problem with these applications is that they try to be all things to all users. Word 7 is a masterpiece of baroque software engineering: it includes everything but the kitchen sink (unless kitchen sink is hidden somewhere in the tools menu), and of course does not include a Reference Manager(although it does have extensive facilities for cross referencing).
Enter Reference Manager 8, which seamlessly integrates into Word 7 (and WordPerfect 7) or later and enables you to call up your reference database while writing, to place citations in the text, to have them numbered or alphabetically
constructed and can be displayed and
ordered and then to have them printed in the journal format of your choice. The only other software remotely like it
used as a standalone database or as a
is End Note. Few people will be in a
tool in Word, where you can cite while
position to compare the two, because brand loyalties (and learning curves) dictate that once one of these has been
you write’, even searching for
chosen users tend to stick with it through subsequent upgrades. This is
appropriate references from Word. The
the first time I have tried either system, so I shall probably stick with Reference
integration with Word is very well done,
Manager. It is certainly a big
you are effectively working in a Word
improvement on my old Access database, which knew nothing about journal formats or how to import from
environment but with full access to
BIDS downloads (although it had been coaxed into importing Medline records).
Reference Manager at all times. The
Reference Manager is very undemanding in terms of files that it will
introductory tutorial even shows you
capture, most of the common formats are preselectable. A reference list is then
how to type in references by hand, with luck this will rarely be necessary.
Reference Manager is undoubtedly very powerful and does pretty much everything that one could ask of a literature database. However, in use it can be quite cumbersome. This was partly because of the way the file management is divided between three different screens (the reference list, the term manager, and the retrieval screens), and partly because the
context-sensitive help was rather terse. ‘Cite while you write’ was also less than totally transparent to use. Once mastered, however, it is possible to search a complete database within a word article for the best reference (using Boolean operators if necessary), mark the text and build an ordered reference list at the end of the article. Some of my difficulties were simply getting used to the layout of the software, and once in use it is an invaluable aid. However, it would be easier to use if a more basic front-end was the default and then one could gradually delve into the more advanced options. Most of the options are available as drop-down menu items or via hot-keys. A useful additional feature would be to include an HTML link with the references so that this could be included automatically on Web-published documents.
of writing reduced as I learnt to use the software, but at the same time I effortlessly built a new database based exclusively on captured documents. As the users are most likely to be scientific authors, a tool such as Refewnce Manager is likely to become an essential time-saving device for grant applications as well as for original articles. The difference between a custom literature database and citation tool, such as Reference Manager, and a
Users of earlier versions of Reference Manager can convert their existing databases and will have little
generic database is almost as great as
difficulty migrating to version 8. Upgrades and bug-futes are available
the jump from card-files to databases,
from a Web site. Using the software for a couple of weeks, I found that my pace
but the transition is a lot less traumatic.
Graham Taylor [email protected]
Regional DNA Laboratory, Ashley Wing, St James’s University Hospital, Leeds,
UK LS9 7-P.
Genetwork is a regular column of news and information about Internet resources for researchers in genetics and development (pp. 3!?-40). Genetwork is compiled and edited with the he@ of Steven E. Brenner (Structural Biology Centre, National Institute of BioScience and Human Technology, Higashi l-l Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan; [email protected]); and Fran Lewitter @cientifIc Computing, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Nine Cambridge Center, Cambrids MA 02142-1479, USA; [email protected]).
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TIG JANUARY 1998 VOL. 14 No. 1
Copyright C 1998 Ekvirr Sciencr Ltd All rights rcsrrvd. 0168-9525/98/$19 00 41
