From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/40518 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "George N. White III" Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: Bibliographic Databases Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:21:05 -0300 Message-ID: <22af238a0804191221w31c40557r9c9ada2474fa340@mail.gmail.com> References: <28FFA564-77A6-41BE-8E15-F8345C904E76@csiro.au> Reply-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1208633146 10126 80.91.229.12 (19 Apr 2008 19:25:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:25:46 +0000 (UTC) To: "mailing list for ConTeXt users" Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Sat Apr 19 21:26:21 2008 connect(): Connection refused Return-path: Envelope-to: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JnIhY-0004DL-Pa for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:26:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A51F1FB39; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:25:39 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 29211-01; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:25:04 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3ED8D1FC6F; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:21:42 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 59D811FC6F for ; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:21:40 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 27761-04-7 for ; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:21:07 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from wa-out-1112.google.com (wa-out-1112.google.com [209.85.146.183]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3BD531FA2B for ; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:21:06 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: by wa-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id m16so2420295waf.14 for ; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:21:05 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.115.75.1 with SMTP id c1mr4102970wal.114.1208632865318; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:21:05 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.114.159.9 with HTTP; Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:21:05 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <28FFA564-77A6-41BE-8E15-F8345C904E76@csiro.au> Content-Disposition: inline X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:40518 Archived-At: On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 11:19 AM, Robin Kirkham wr= ote: > Dear all, > > I want to set up a shared bibliographic reference database for my > research group, and I'm looking at software like refbase http:// > refbase.sourceforge.net/ or refdb http://refdb.sourceforge.net/ to > replace the somewhat random collection of personal BibTeX .bib files > we have. > > Does anyone have any experience or advice to offer in using such > things, and hooking them up to ConTeXt? Most of these systems will > of course emit a .bib file which will obviously work, but will any > emit the .bbl so I can forget about BibTeX? Will luatex one day > connect to a bib database and fetch the details of a cited > reference? Is there a ConTeXt "approved" way forward for this sort > of thing? I can tell you a few things that don't work! In our lab we have both TeX and Word users. Many of them had been using a DOS package called papyrus, using a special markup that could be translated to tex (.bbl) files. Nothing we found was really satisfactory, so we bought EndNote, which could import from papyrus via "refer" format and can export to "almost bibtex". One problem is that EndNote uses unicode, so we end up with =E8, etc. that must be translated for some user's versions of bibtex. The database now has a nearly infinite variety of different quote marks: `a`, 'a', ``a'', "a", etc. depending on how the entry was made (many are pasted from online or pdf sources). EndNote is really designed for individual users, although sold in bulk. If 2 people open the same database on a shared drive they end up with a corrupt database. In my view, a bibliographic database needs to store each reference in the "source" or original format, whether bibtex, refer, or one of the newer forms, and provide translators and version tracking, so each file can have forks for different uses (e.g., ascii vs unicode char. sets) and edits can be preserved for the next user. In practice, people just dump selected refs to a bib file, make the .bbl file, and fix problems there, so fixes rarely make it back to the master database. If they did, we would still have accents and quote marks being switched back and forth depending on who last used the entry. -- = George N. White III Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia ___________________________________________________________________________= ________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to t= he Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-cont= ext webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________= ________