Re: zotero (or mendeley) integration with org

[William Gardella <gardellawg@gmail.com>]

Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org> writes:

> Stephen Eglen <S.J.Eglen@damtp.cam.ac.uk> writes:
>
>> There was a mail-thread lastyear about zotero and integration with org.
>> Now that there is an alpha release of 'org-standalone' 
>>   http://www.zotero.org/blog/2011/02/
>>
>> has anyone looked at whether this helps integrate org and zotero?
>>
>> I've not yet switched to a pdf manager (they're all stuffed into a
>> folder, with a few subfolders, and the only meta-data is in the
>> filename!), so I'd appreciate hearing what others to do to look after
>> their pdfs.  Mendeley is a possibility too (although syncing between
>> machines is a must, and Mendeley doesn't offer that yet.)
>
> One option is to manage metadata in org-mode itself, relying on
> org-attach to store and preserve links to the pdf files. Bibtex source
> blocks can used to store bibliographical data for each pdf.
>
> I find the combination of emacs-w3m, google scholar, and org-mode to be
> an easier and more transparent way to manage bibtex data than an
> indirect route via Zotero or Mendeley. But I also prefer to edit all my
> bibtex data by hand. :)
>
> Recoll is great for indexing. I have a mess of spaghetti code I use to
> pull recoll results into a temporary org outline. I can then open the
> relevant files using org links. I'd be happy to share it if anyone is
> interested.
>
> Best,
> Matt
>
>

I use something like the setup Matt describes as well (except I haven't
played with Recoll).  I use org-attach to keep documents
organized; usually they're attached to a :noexport: top-level heading
creatively called "Documents," which contains the citation info and
keeps my research/reading notes distinct from the paper I'm writing.
Since my org files are themselves indexed and easily searchable, I've
not felt the need for any collection management software beyond that.
(For legal research it's particularly good, because I can get LEXIS to
email me most legal texts as plaintext, which I then just add inline as
subheadings to the Documents heading.)

For bibliography generation, I use RefTeX to do my BibTeXing for me, and
I use a pretty crude one bibliography database to one paper kind of
system.

Best,
Will

-- 
William Gardella
J.D. Candidate
Class of 2011, University of Pittsburgh School of Law