Hi folks.
I'm a technologically inept research assistant trying to find a reference management software suitable for a library of around 10 GB of PDFs, all of which are scanned and OCR'd copies of texts from around the 17th-19th centuries. As such, I don't need a program that searches through databases and keeps me up to speed with contemporary journals so much as I need something that will let me effectively manage my existing library. I've tried Zotero, Mendeley, Sente, Papers, and a few other programs, but I'm having trouble finding one that meets all of my needs for this specific collection of documents (or perhaps I've totally misunderstood and misused these programs so if that's the case, please god tell me why I'm wrong).
I should also mention that this is not my library; it's my advisor's. The main issue he's having is that he set up Papers on his campus computer but can't access it from anywhere else; he's also had problems syncing it with Dropbox and has experienced frequent crashes. He wants to be able to access and update his library whenever and wherever, regardless of what computer he is using.
Ideally, the program I use would have the following capabilities:
I've been systematically going through the Wikipedia comparison chart of reference management software but as I do so, I was hoping that I might be able to get some recommendations from actual historians. What programs have you had success with? Which ones suck and aren't worth trying out?
Thanks!
p.s. sorry if formatting is weird; first post ever.
Librarian here. A reference management system is for organizing large bibliographies, but it sounds like you might need a document management system? If that is the case you can do some searching for that phrase instead. You might want to check in with your liaison librarian if you are on a campus, or a digital or systems librarian. Someone with that expertise within your organization will have knowledge of the IT resources and limitations that your researcher is working in as well. If your organization has any kind of faculty publications depository whomever is in charge of it would be a great resource.
In my experience... there is no such software. Maybe someone here will prove me wrong. But the lack of good software tools for managing primary and secondary sources (and I agree that the existing bibliographic offerings don't quite cut the mustard for this) is a major issue (in my mind) within the historical community. I ask younger scholars all the time what software they use (as they are generally more clued-in on changing possibilities than the older ones, in my experience), and it is always a hodgepodge of methods, nothing at all standard. The more technically literate (which includes myself) write or adapt their own database software to manage it. (I have at various points used things like Microsoft Access, home-made MySQL/PHP databases, and other hodgepodge-just-barely-get-the-job-done options. I know people who have set up elaborate systems with AutoIt and Python and FileMaker and things like that. None of these are scalable solutions, obviously, because they are tailored to individual projects.)
So... if you're feeling like, maybe there is something obvious you are missing... there is not, at least as far as I have seen. There are a lot of half-options that half-work for some sorts of projects. There is nothing that I have seen that really does what is necessary for real historical work with digitized sources like you describe. I have given some talks on this (I call this the "data gap" in the field of history — we have terrible data management practices, as a discipline, and part of this is a lack of adequate software tools).
Zotero can handle this easily, and in my experience is the best all round reference/document manager. It makes sense that it works great for history work because it was developed by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.
"If you use Dropbox (or another similar file-syncing service), you can now save your citations in Zotero, attach links to files in a Dropbox folder, and have both synchronize with every computer you use." http://libguides.princeton.edu/c.php?g=84032&p=544384
That guide provides steps on how to do that. The bonus is that you can keep your existing folder structure, but I think you will have to link each item (there may be a way to batch process this). However it can be set up to automatically save attachments in dropbox so you will not have to manually link each new item after this inital import.
I suggest taking a look at the Zotero documentation to familiarise yourself with what it can do. I think you'll be suprised at how powerful it is. Like anything, theres a learning curve, but Zotero is worth the investment in my view. For example, if your pdfs are OCR'd then you can basically drag and drop them into Zotero and ask zotero to look up the metadata, create a citation, rename or move the attachment, and maintain a link between the file and the citation. Pretty powerful and easy to do.
What you want is possible, just barely, using Zotero, but the result is admittedly clunky and occasionally awkward in practice, especially for seraching custom metadata.
You might want to consider using a professional document management software of the sort usually targeted at small businesses, like DevonThink or iDocument or Together (by Reinvented Software). You may or may not have to pay extra for remote sync capabilies.
iDocument and Together are mac-Only, but DevonThink and also Mariner's Paperless are cross-platform. Expect to pay somewhere in the range of $20-$80 per license.