---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: [pyblio] open source bibliography Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 11:56:15 -0700 From: Eric Zollars <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Pybliographer ML <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
All- Thought you might be interested. This was published in the most recent issue of Nature. Oddly, the BibTeX format is not mentioned. *Open-source answer to bibliography problem* */Sir/* – David M. Leslie and Meredith J. Hamilton say in their Correspondence "Multitude of reference styles delays publication" that a standard format is needed for citation and bibliography styles. The well-established LaTex family of open-source packages is such a system. Many journals in the physical and mathematical sciences provide their bibliographic style files directly on their websites, reducing the problem of format management. Life-sciences journals could easily follow their example. Leslie and Hamilton repeat a familiar objection to LaTeX: the learning curve takes away time from research work. This problem has largely been solved in the form of an open-source graphical interface to LaTeX called LyX (http://www.lyx.org), providing standard functionality such as cut/paste and spell-checking. New users are relieved of the time investment necessary for using LaTeX alone, yet they still derive its well-known performance benefits. The Lyx interface handles standard file formats, most significantly Adobe PDF, which many journals require for electronic submission. It is therefore compatible with other tools used by authors to view, share and submit their written work. Leslie and Hamilton discuss one standardization tool, the digital object identifier (DOI). But although there is substantial incentive for publishers to adopt DOI for increased visibility and accessibility, the benefits of simply changing long-established reference and citation styles are unclear. LaTeX/LyX may represent a more realistic solution. We hope investigators will also consider such open-source applications in the broader context of conducting their scientific work as suggested in your Editorial "In praise of open software" *Michael C. Wendl* & *David J. Dooling* /Genome Sequencing Center, Washington University, 4444 Forest Park Boulevard, Box 8501, St Louis, Missouri 63108, USA/ ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Pybliographer-general mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pybliographer-general -------------------------------------------------------
