[Papyrus-L] where to next?

[Dr Andrew Wilson]

I have been trying out alternatives to Papyrus this last week, using the
time-limited trial downloads of Endnote, ProCite, Reference Manager and
Biblioscape available on their manufacturers' websites.

Several things have become clear:

1. No program out there combines the ease of use of Papyrus with its
powerful search capabilities, and intelligent fuzzy logic.

2. If you have more than 32000 references, forget Endnote.

3. If you need notecards, then of the 4 alternatives I have tried,
Biblioscape is the only option.

4. Biblioscape seems to have the most powerful search capabilities of the
programs I have looked at.

5. Biblioscape also allows you the most control over database structure.

6. If you have used anything more than the bare minimum of Papyrus fields,
you are going to have to get involved in a fairly painful conversion
routine. The standard RIS OUT format for Papyrus omits some fields; and the
RIS import templates in Biblioscape, Reference Manager etc. will need to be
tailored to match any optional fields you have used. Also, the RIS OUT
format only uses author initials so if you want to keep full first names
you'll need to edit the format. You'll also find yourself playing around
with mapping all those "Also print", "Other info" fields etc. onto whatever
fields in the new program most closely fit the purpose you used them for in
Papyrus.

Migration of a large database (72000 references in my case) is therefore a
pretty big headache. I have spent all my spare time this week and last
weekend testing and correcting import routines to the various programs to
see if they will really handle the data I have. I am nearly there with
Biblioscape (my preferred option for my purposes), but there are still some
outstanding issues (there were similar issues with Reference Manager before
I gave up on that):

1. Most programs can't handle the distinction between authors and editors of
a book in the way Papyrus does; they lose the "Authors are editors?"
information. So in Biblioscape the editors simply become authors; but then
you can't see that they should be editors.  You can get round this by using
a custom field to store the Papyrus (ed) / (eds) output data, though you
lose the automatic control over formatting that Papyrus could do with this.

2. Other programs seem to insist on numeric dates. So dates like "1992-1993"
are problematic, also "forthcoming 2002" and "in press". The import to
Biblioscape just omits these so the date is blank.

3. I haven't yet found a way to import notecards into Biblioscape. The
suggestion recently posted on this list that you could put them in the Notes
field of a reference won't work if you have multiple notecards for some
references.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to handle these last 3 questions?



--

Dr Andrew Wilson
University Lecturer in Roman Archaeology
Institute of Archaeology
36 Beaumont St
Oxford
OX1 2PG

Tel: +44 (0)1865 278247
Fax: +44 (0)1865 278254

e-mail: andrew.wilson at archaeology.ox.ac.uk
Web page: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0057/




-----Original Message-----
From: papyrus-l-admin at rsd.com [mailto:papyrus-l-admin at rsd.com]On Behalf
Of Terri Singer
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 1:26 PM
To: papyrus-l at rsd.com
Subject: Re: [Papyrus-L] where to next?


Roger:

I have just purchased Reference Manager. It does not have any limits. I
can't tell you how it is working because I still haven't moved my files
over, but limits were definitely a consideration for me.

Terri Singer

On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Dr Roger Middleton wrote:

> Like many last week, the news that Papyrus would no longer be
> further developed was a shock and led me to think about
> alternatives in the medium-term. One that is constantly
> suggested is EndNote, but apparently that has a limit of
> 32,000 references per library. Since I have 31,000 refs in
> Papyrus I would like to know what exactly the implications of
> this are. Needless to say I have e-mailed EndNote's technical
> support on this matter, but not had a response. This may not
> augur well for those contemplating such a move of product.
> Meanwhile, I'm sticking firmly with Papyrus but does anyone know
> EndNote who can advise?
> Roger Middleton
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
> Dr Roger Middleton
> Reader in the History of Political Economy
> University of Bristol
> 13 Woodland Road
> Bristol BS8 1TB, United Kingdom
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
> Tel. +44 (0) 117 928 7931  Fax. +44 (0) 117 928 8276
> Email Roger.Middleton at Bristol.ac.uk
> URL   http://www.bristol.ac.uk/~hirm/rmhome.html
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Papyrus-L mailing list
> Papyrus-L at rsd.com
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>

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L. Terri Singer, M.L.S                    e-mail: tsinger at luna.cas.usf.edu
Dept. Community & Family Health		  voice:  813/974-7273
College of Public Health, MDC-62	  fax:    813/974-7271
University of South Florida
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