Since I download and read a lot of scientific papers (specially form arXiv and spires, or its recently upgraded environment, inspirebeta), oftenly I realice the way chosen for classify them is not the best… and the work starts almost from the beginning.
In Ubuntu there is a software called Referencer, which allows to manage you papers collection, but despite their advantages… I felt a bit discouraged (a.f.a.I.k. does not update automatically the list of papers in the folder).
You can try it,
$ sudo apt-get install referencer
Looking for a substitute, I’ve found Mendeley.
http://www.mendeley.com/
You must Sign In for using it, and you could manage your references either on-line (you get 500M storage) or locally (after installing MendeleyDesktop).
Installing Mendeley Desktop
Add the repository
Open the source.list file,
$ sudo nano /etc/apt/source.list
and add the line
deb http://www.mendeley.com/repositories/xUbuntu_10.10 /
Save the changes and exit.
Install the software
Update the repositories, and install
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mendeleydesktop
Running Mendeley Desktop
You can now run it by using the cli,
$ mendeleydesktop
or by writing it after press Alt+F2.
Adding Documents
If you have all your references in a folder, you can add them by clicking on File->Watch Folder and select the path to the folder you like.
The difference between adding a folder this way or just click on Add Folder, is that the former updates the data any time you re-open the application.
When documents are added to your library, Mendeley connects to internet data bases and try to get the right information about them… for documents from Spires and arXiv, the rate of success is high, but it fails getting data about Journal publication.
One can always add some data manually… hard way!!! 😛
Searching Files and Reading
At the upper-right corner there is a search bar, which allows you to narrow down through author, title, or even tag.
If you double-click on a paper it opens “inside” Mendeley, and the software allows you to highlight, add post-it to the PDF, copy text, and many other advantages.
<still un-finished>
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