Endnote is, according to their makers, the bestest citation software ever. As is Zotero (according to their makers). And probably a bunch of others as well.

Back when I was still trying out stuff and relatively new to the world of people working in physics (who have an affinity to LaTeX-the-programme), I wrote one article in TeX. I had to re-do it in MS Word to get it published, but this little stint meant that I got to know the powers of BibTeX, which is the citation system thingie that comes with TeX. It is, more or less, a reference database that you cite from, and the programme does the formatting.

Sound familiar? That's just what EndNote does with Word. Back when I then found out that there was, indeed, such a programme, I bought it for the hefty sum they asked for the student edition back then and have been using it ever since. There's connection files to get data from online library catalogues (something I should have used more, I now think, it might have saved me lots of work), style files that can be altered to suit individual needs, and both a field for "notes" (which I use for making general, personal notes about a reference) and "research notes" (which I use for typing excerpts or snippets including the page number so they can actually be used for working without the physical copy of the book). Plus there are custom fields - those I have used to mark whether I own a book (physical or digital copy), where it stands in my library (well, that's a work in progress to be honest), if I have pictures in my picture database (by noting down the prefix of the image files, such as schweppe_ which is, in the actual files, followed by a page number so I have files like schweppe_10.png) and if I have already read it or just jotted it down for future reading.

According to the version history, my purchase of the programme must have been in 2004. Which means that my version is a little... older. Now, I have no problem with older software (I'm happily using Word2000, and not planning to change from that), but sometimes, it pays to look for alternatives. Especially since my EndNote is sort of iffy on the connection files, with quite a few of them not working (or not working anymore), and I cannot download the whole set of new ones from the site (there is no such button in my installation menu).

Due to the recent mention of Mendeley by Phiala in the comments of some other post, I did a little looking and found Qiqqa - a .pdf organising software with built-in OCR, a wizard to help with filling out the reference data for each imported .pdf, and the possibility to cite to Word. I quite like it on the first try and am currently using it to get some order into my .pdfs. I have even considered changing to this programme from EndNote for all my referencing, but it does not do a few things that I have grown accustomed to, and I have also read that it's not too easy to modify citation styles (something I regularly need to do).

Qiqqa is intended for use over the web, with web storage of .pdfs, something which I don't need (and don't want). It allows "vanilla references", that is those without a .pdf attached, but then I get a nasty popup if I want to associate a file with it now. It also does import from EndNote - but not the "Research Notes". There is the possibility to search for duplicates, but I found it rather hard to compare the actual duplicates with each other and decide which one should stay and which one should go. I have not tried the citation thingie yet, but from the overall feel, it's very much geared towards .pdf files only, and I don't want to use two programmes. So at the moment, my plan is to use Qiqqa to get some order into my .pdf files, then export the data via BibTeX and a converter to EndNote, and merge the two databases. (That's the plan only, though - and it might change if problems with the import should arise. Or if Qiqqa should evolve some more, and then I might reconsider using it as my new reference database thingie.)

I'd be happy to hear about your experiences with Qiqqa, EndNote, Zotero or whatever you use!

Update 2021: Unfortunately, Fototime has ceased operation, as the company has gone under during a huge server failure. So they are not online anymore, and if you have a pro edition, that includes their license server. I'm very sad about this, and if someone has suggestions for alternative software that is similar, I'd love to hear about it!
As the long-term readers among you might know, I am using Endnote for my references and bibliography, and a programme called Fototime FotoAlbum. Both have been on my system for years now, so I have gained a bit of experience with them.

FotoAlbum is making a good job of sorting and handling my image database, and their online support is one of the best I know. There was no instance where I didn't get a speedy reply, and things were taken care of whenever possible (I realise that not all my requests would fall in line with the needs of the normal customers, so it's understandable they are not adapting the programme just for me).
The programme allows notes and comments, ratings, copyright notes, keywords and captions; it has filters and an "album" system that makes it possible to store pictures in a given folder structure, yet have them as part of several albums. There's also the possibility to define smart albums, automatically putting pictures in there if they have the right keywords, date, or other defined thing.

Speaking of dates - I use the programme to sort my picture database which, logically if you are working about medieval stuff, consists mostly of old things. The photo timeline is quite generous, since it allows to go back until 1700 (there were no photos before that time, right? Right? Yes.). For stuff from the 9th or 12th century... that's a bit late, though. So I developed my own system that has been successful for years now: I use the 1700 as code for my centuries, as in 1708 - eighth century, 1715 - fifteenth century. And I even have a months key, for example January 1713 means from 1200 to the 1220s. The months key is not perfect (due to my less than perfect definition, that is) but it works fine and it allows me to sort all my pictures by date. And I have a lot of pictures.

So if you are in search of a picture database, I can fully recommend the programme. I use the paid-for edition, due to a few reasons of my own, but FotoAlbum is also available in a free edition that will already serve for most database-related needs, including handing out your pictures or a selection of them, with all the data attached and viewable, to someone else.

As for Endnote... that's something to write about tomorrow.

I had a really nice and very intense day of sitting in the library and reading and taking notes yesterday - which felt absolutely fine.

I have started to take notes for each book that I store in my bibliography database so I can have an excerpt and check again if necessary where something came from, and I now somehow sort of regret that I haven't started this years and years ago. I'm still working with EndNote and will continue to do so, I have never gotten onto good terms with Zotero, though it seems to be a good (and free) choice. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have also never really tried hard to get onto good terms with Zotero.)

And let me state again that I am a huge fan of databases, both for bibliography and for pictures - because having a searchable, tagged or keyworded heap of information is much better than having an unorganised, non-searchable heap of information.

So if you have pictures, or collect pictures for research reasons, and read books for research purposes, I thoroughly recommend you to get a database thingie - there are heaps of free ones on the Internet - and at least note down the following: who took the picture (if it wasn't you) or the book it came from (including the page) if it's a scan, and for books you read the author/editor, book title, year, and a short note of how you liked it. You can put in much more - excerpts, keywords (both for book and picture), picture captions, a note of how you liked the book, further citation traces to follow, where the book is located, when you looked at it, or whatever would be good but is not on my radar at the moment. But having at least a note of the minimum things will mean you being able to remember whether you had that book in your hands already... or not.

Having said that, I should probably spend a little time on the care and feeding of my databases today.

At Schauhuette, the last part about the current excavation in the church has been posted. It's part four, though it will be less interesting for those of you who do not understand German, since it's mostly explanations, no more time-lapse excavation bits.

In completely other news, I have discovered a new programme that is quite useful for freelancers, or for anyone else who wants to track computer-use time. It's called ManicTime, the smaller version is free, and it tracks the applications that you open and how long you spend on them. No starting or stopping of a time-tracking tool needed, plus you can see how long you procrastinated by hanging out on facebook or reading webcomics or whatever.

And while I'm at it, here's another very useful tool: AntiTwin. It looks for file duplicates in one or more folders and has a really convenient possibilities to sort out files for deletion. Freeware for private users too - life is good.

The university of Copenhagen hosts a conference about Textiles and Economy in the Middle Ages (in northern and central Europe) that will take place on the 19th and 20th of April. While this will be too short a notice for most of us to secure a spot in the conference and rush to Copenhagen, it's still possible to attend through remote participation via the conference homepage:

Production and trade of textiles in medieval Europe - The central and northern Europe as example.

The link for the online participation seems not to be live yet, but I suspect (and hope!) this will change in the next few days. The conference is open to a global internet audience and you will be able to participate from your own computer where ever you are, using the on-line meeting system Adobe Connect.


I am certainly planning to catch a few of those lectures!

I really enjoyed the day off yesterday - spent mostly sitting in the sun, enjoying the warm, balmy spring air, and reading. And now it's back to all those things that wait for me to do them - including a full backup of my current data on the computer, and then migrating the contents of the computer to a new (and much larger) internal disk drive.

And all this because I am running out of space, and I started to shift some files to external disk drives - until a while ago I realised that there are pictures missing from the internal drive. Pictures that I knew must be there, and that seem to be (hopefully all of them) on a backup drive from quite a while ago. I have no clue how that could have happened, but it's not filling me with delight, quite the contrary. So I did what everyone with not enough space on the disk does: I ordered a new, bigger one. Once this is all finished, I will have an internal terabyte (Yay! Space!) which, judging by my current migration process to bigger disks, should last at least two years... or quite a bit more.

These were the news from pallia's IT department. Stay tuned for news from the Customer Service department and the Research Facilities... they are due soon.

This landed in my email inbox yesterday:

Dear all,

We are glad to inform you that it will be possible to follow the international workshop An integration of use-wear and residues analysis for the identification of the function of archaeological stone tools, “La Sapienza” University of Rome, 5th – 7th March 2012  live on the website www.archaeologicaltraces.org.

Everybody is welcome to participate, actively or not, in the discussion sessions using the chat.

So in case you read this in time, you can have a look. In case you are too late (or not interested in stone tool use wear analysis), you can still join me in thinking this a really awesome and really cool thing. Live streaming and interactive discussion on conferences! Welcome to the future! Yay!