Personal bibliographic systems (PBS)

Abstract

Personal Bibliographic Systems (PBS) manage the input, storage, retrieval and output of bibliographic references, allowing for a number of different document types to accomodate for references to journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, reports, unpublished papers electronic documents, etc. Unlike general purpose database management programs, they are made to the measure of bibliographic information, featuring a.o. a variety of import profiles for records downloaded from the major international databases, and the automatic generation of dozens of different output styles, including those used by the world's leading scientific journals. Modern PBS have the additional advantage of increasing standardization, enhanced by the Windows(95) platform, and the integration of various modules from within the same paradigm or with external programs like wordprocessors. The provision of import, storage, retrieval and output of Internet-derived information is a recent asset. This paper focuses on the various options and characteristics which can make a PBS attractive for its potential users. Special attention is paid to structural flexibility, retrieval options, input, display and output formats, and interface- and management-related issues. A survey of individual PBS features is included as an appendix.