#376 Cross-referencing within a database

[craigim]

First of all, I've officially ditched EndNote in favor of JabRef. GREAT PROGRAM!

It would be great if I could enter cross reference information into each entry. For instance, if I've entered a journal article into the database, and that article references 5 other papers in my database, I would like to be able to link those 5 papers to the original. Then have a view where I could select a paper and have the references also selected and floated directly below, or maybe as a tree view, with the references in a sub-tree, those references as sub-sub-trees, etc. up to a user selectable depth.

If one wanted to get really fancy, and I'm speaking as a non-programmer with no idea what this would entail here, it would be interesting to be able to visualize this in a map view, where you could see the interconnectedness of your entire database (a much more complicated example of what I'm talking about can be found here: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/map-welcome-to-the-blogosphere\).

Keep up the good work!

[craigim]

Coming back here to comment that the first half of my feature request would be incredibly helpful, especially since my database has now grown to over 1500 entries and I find myself re-adding papers that I've forgotten are in there using the ISI "papers that cite this paper" feature. Having the ability to cluster the papers together into threads based on citations (and a "see also" field) would make navigation of the database so much easier and more useful.

While the map idea would be cool way to visualize the database, I don't consider it to be more than wishful thinking.

[nminhptnk]

I, on the other hand, think mapping the references could be not only a great way to visualize a user's reference list, but it tremendously helps him remember the important references. Particularly, if I am working on a special topic and want to view how my current refs link together, or how this topic link to a bigger picture, it improves the research quality!!!! Remember what Steve Jobs said about connecting the dots. If Jabref allows an user to visualize the dots and see if he can connect those ideas, I BET Jabref will beat, without sympathy, their rivals. That's my idea, as a researcher.

The visualization don't need to be nice. Just display a tree is enough. Please help the research community. Help the knowledge expansion.

[craigim]

Actually, the mapping would not be that difficult (I think), if there were some way to massage the data, whether with something internal or else a way to export the data in a way readable by the open source program Gephi (gephi.org), which handles this kind of mapping automatically.