From: seb1005@mbfs.bio.cam.ac.uk (Steven Brenner)
Newsgroups: bionet.software
Subject: Biblography Programs: Summary of Responses
Date: 16 Nov 92 01:33:01 GMT
Organization: U. of Cambridge, England


I recently posted asking about bibliography programs for unix.  Here
are the responses I received.  Many thanks to all those who replied!

I should note that the addbib/refer package seems to be standard on
most unix systems (Sun has it as an option, BSD has it, AIX has it,
IRIX doesn't have it on the machines I use)

Cheers,
Steven Brenner

---
From: davis@nod.bms.com (Malcolm Davis)
Subject: Unix Bibliography Programs?

Hi,

I use LaTeX to write my documents and so use the BibTeX bibliography
database.  There are a few programs around for working with this
format.  I just use the emacs bibtex-mode and a couple of Perl scripts
I have written, but I have heard good things about the bibcard program.
I also make big use of Current Contents on Disk and so have writtin a
Perl script which will take CCOD's output and convert to BibTeX format
along with my personal scheme for generating key names.

Malcolm Davis / davis@nod.bms.com / BMSPRI Princeton, NJ

---

From: dws@forager.unl.edu (David Stephens)

There are two that I know of.  The first, and I think the most widely
used, is bibtex.  It's designed to be used with LaTeX, and it's very
programmable, but you have to be quite a nerd to program it.  It's
public domain, and maintained by the TeX group in stanford.  There's
lots of support for it in various forms, pre-programmed styles for
various journals.  Emacs modes for editing the database, and an
openlook frontend called bibcard.

There's also tib, I don't use this, but I understand it's more
flexible.  It can be used with non-TeX text processing systems (i.e.
scribe).

I don't know of any commerical packages.

dave stephens

----

From: rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D.)


Steven,

One system you will want to know about is bibIX.  Although the current
production release is tied to troff, we have a formatter-independent version
in the works, and a prototyupe is working with Frame, for example.

Cheerio, Rick Rodgers
********************************************************************************
*
*                               ANNOUNCEMENT
*
*  PROGRAM PACKAGE:  BibIX Bibliographic Database and Text Formatting
*                    System for UNIX (Release 2.1)
*                    January 1990
*
********************************************************************************
*
*  TABLE OF CONTENTS:
*
*  1) GENERAL DESCRIPTION
*  2) PROGRAMS IN THIS PACKAGE
*  3) PROGRAMS RELATED TO THIS PACKAGE BUT WHICH ARE DISTRIBUTED AS
*     PART OF UNIX
*  4) THE BIBIX USER'S/PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL
*  5) DISTRIBUTION INFORMATION
*  6) AUTHORSHIP INFORMATION
*  7) OVERVIEW MANUAL PGAE
*
********************************************************************************
*
*  SECTION 1: GENERAL DESCRIPTION
*
*  BibIX is a suite of C programs and UNIX Bourne shell scripts which allows
*  the creation and manipulation of bibliographic databases.  It is a powerful
*  adjunct to the troff text formatting system (and, in a future release, will
*  be usable in conjunction with other batch-mode and WYSIWYG systems).
*  Its generality and flexible database capabilities have also made it well
*  suited to other applications, such as the creation and use of on-line
*  publications catalogs and address books, and the creation of printed
*  indices for in-house memoranda and reports.

[Most of message deleted.]

*
*  BibIX is a licensed software system, and is distributed by:
*
*  Steve Santiago or Claire Ledonne
*  Office of Technology Licensing
*  2150 Shattuck Ave., Suite 510
*  Berkeley, CA 94704-7201
*  United States of America
*  (415)643-7201
*  (415)642-4566(fax)
*  (domino@garnet.berkeley.edu) (orders)
*  (domino@violet.berkeley.edu) (queries)
*  (otl@violet.berkeley.edu) (general)
*
*  The licensing fee for the package follows a sliding scale, dependent upon
*  the type of site.
*
*  Technical information can also be obtained from the authors:
*
*  R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D., and Conrad Huang, Ph.D.
*  Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy
*  University of California, Laurel Heights Campus, Box 1204
*  3333 California Street, Room 102
*  San Francisco, CA 94118 USA
*  (415)476-2957
*  UUCP: ...ucbvax.berkeley.edu!cgl.ucsf.edu!rodgers
*  UUCP: ...ucbvax.berkeley.edu!cgl.ucsf.edu!conrad
*  Internet: rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu
*  Internet: conrad@cgl.ucsf.edu
*  BITNET: rodgers@ucsfcgl
*  BITNET: conrad@ucsfcgl
*

---

From: JONKER@amc.uva.nl

It depends on your good taste ofcourse, but the standard
UNIX bibliography program is roffbib. It can do a lot and
has a clear to understand file format. Like %A for author.
One item a line etc. Try the man pages.
ard
 
 
----

From: sendall@dxpt01.cern.ch
Message-Id: <9211101345.AA00191@dxpt01.cern.ch>
To: seb1005@mbfs.bio.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Unix Bibliography Programs?
Status: OR

Well, there's refer and its related programs that are probably in
your man pages... If not, you can look at mine. Try telnet to
info.cern.ch, follow the links to "Software Technology" under the
"Computing" subject heading, and ask about refer. There must be
an easier way, but you can have fun with WWW while trying  :-)
 
I've not used these programs seriously - they seem wildly eccentric
and outdated, like everything else about Unix, but there they are.
There are papers on them by Tuthill and Lesk in my Ultrix supplementary
documentation, that look like reprints of ancient papers. I don't
think you should have any trouble finding the references or the
software, but if you, do let me know.
 
There must be something better by now.
 
There are plenty of commercial packages for libraries, but I guess
that's overkill for your application, and their human interface is
usually bad. There is other indexing and retrieval software like WAIS,
but I suppose that's not quite what you're after.
 
Good luck
 
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