Talk:Refbase

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[edit] Categorization

Is there a reason this is classified as a "bibliographic database?" It appears to be purely "reference management software," as it is a software package. Steve3003 21:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

There are multiple publicly accessible databases that use refbase as a backend, such as USGS-Woods Hole. Since this article doesn't discuss those particular databases, I'm not strongly opposed to removing the cat. I think it could be useful to have a subcat under both bibliographic databases and reference management software for the commonly used web-based managers (at ~10K records each, these tend to be much larger than mere reference managers & a bit smaller than notable bibliographic databases). --Karnesky 23:06, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps products that serve as backends belong in their own category? I see a number of similar products that don't seem to have a real category: refbase, DSpace, Greenstone, Eprints, and perhaps Fedora. Could all these products be called "institutional repository software," or "web-based managers" (as you mentioned), or something similar?

I'm guessing the primary difference between these and "reference management software" is having real scalability and providing a web interface? Perhaps "reference management software" is more something that runs on a client workstation and has some level of document editor integration? (Does refbase do client integration too?) Steve3003 00:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

W.r.t. client integration: While refbase can generate a bibliography from an office document that contains manually placed in-text citations, refbase currently does not offer a macro & palette to allow direct database access from within office desktop applications (more info). This is a planned feature, though. Matthias Steffens 18:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)