Re: [ANN] org-bibtex.el --- convert between Org headings and bibtex entries

["Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.com>]

Hi Eric,

This could be very useful and a significant enhancement to Org-mode  
for note taking.  With it, library time can be spent almost entirely  
within Org-mode, capturing bibliographic information and taking  
reading notes.  It feels like the right level of functionality-- 
lightweight and easy to use, with lots of prompting material.

I created an entry with org-bibtex-create and then another with org- 
bibtex-read/write.  When I ran org-bibtex, only the second entry was  
exported.  Also, the org-bibtex-read/write process mangled the bibtex  
entry a bit, so the resulting .bib file wasn't useful.  Note the  
addition of {} around the publisher and year, and the truncation of  
multi-line entries.

Can I suggest some changes?

1) In our multi-user environment, where several authors are  
contributing to a master bibtex file, we depend on the key generating  
algorithm of bibtex-mode to help weed out duplicate entries.   This  
isn't 100% effective, but it catches lots of duplicates and saves us  
time.  Would it be possible to lift this mechanism and use it in org- 
bibtex to generate the CUSTOM_ID?

2) It might be better to use the (generated) key as the Org headline,  
instead of the title.  Titles can be longer than I find comfortable  
for an Org-mode headline, whereas keys are usually about the right  
length.

3) org-bibtex-cite seems like a natural next step, especially if it  
offers a list of keys in the Org-mode buffer.

Here are the details of my test run:

Existing bibtex entry:

@Book{tuggle94:_cultur_resour_naval_air_station_barber_point,
   author =    {H. David Tuggle and M. J. Tomonari-Tuggle and
                   D. Colt Denfeld},
   title =        {Cultural Resources of Naval Air Station, Barbers
                   Point: Summary, Assessment, and Inventory Research
                   Design: Task 1b: Archaeological Research Services
                   for the Proposed Cleanup, Disposal, and Reuse of
                   Naval Air Station, Barbers Point, O`ahu, Hawai`i},
   publisher =    iarii,
   year =         1994,
   series =    {Prepared for Belt Collins Hawaii},
   address =   {Honolulu},
   month =     {December}}

Org-mode tree:


* Schulte bibtex

** A journal title
    :PROPERTIES:
    :type:     article
    :AUTHOR:   A. N. Author
    :JOURNAL:  Journal of Statistical Software
    :YEAR:     1998
    :CUSTOM_ID: author_10:article
    :END:

** {Cultural Resources of Naval Air Station, Barbers
    :PROPERTIES:
    :TYPE:     book
    :CUSTOM_ID: tuggle94:_cultur_resour_naval_air_station_barber_point
    :MONTH:    December}
    :ADDRESS:  Honolulu
    :SERIES:   Prepared for Belt Collins Hawaii
    :YEAR:     1994
    :PUBLISHER: iarii
    :AUTHOR:   {H. David Tuggle and M. J. Tomonari-Tuggle and
    :END:

Org-bibtex output:

@book{tuggle94:_cultur_resour_naval_air_station_barber_point,
   author={{H. David Tuggle and M. J. Tomonari-Tuggle and},
   title={{Cultural Resources of Naval Air Station, Barbers},
   publisher={iarii},
   year={1994},
   series={Prepared for Belt Collins Hawaii},
   address={Honolulu},
   month={December}}
}

hth,
Tom

On Apr 19, 2011, at 1:52 PM, Eric Schulte wrote:

> Hi,
>
> In an attempt to organize my reading notes, I've written the following
> tool which allows both for exporting Org-mode headlines with bibtex
> meta-data to bibtex entries, and for reading existing bibtex entries
> into Org-mode headings.
>
> One nice feature of these functions is the ability to check that all
> required fields are present in a given headline based on the bibtex  
> type
> (e.g., :article, :inproceedings), and prompt for missing fields.
>
> See the top of the elisp file for more usage information.
> https://github.com/eschulte/org-bibtex/blob/master/org-bibtex.el
>
> Cheers -- Eric
>
> -- 
> Eric Schulte
> http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte/
>