Mini-review: Bibus, an open source bibliographic managment tool

After converting from Ubuntu linux about a year ago, I found that there were only two tasks that required me to boot into my Windows installation: syncing my iPod touch with iTunes, and writing documents that required heavy scientific referencing with EndNote. The first task may very soon have a viable linux alternative with the imminent release of PwnPlayer. When I recently set to work on a lengthy literature review, I decided to go and find a viable alternative for referencing too. After testing a few options, I came across Bibus. It’s not perfect, but it does competently replace all the functions of EndNote – and, of course, it’s totally free and open source.

Bibus performs all the basic referencing functions: it imports citations from files or manual input, stores and organises them in a simple database, inserts in-text citations into OpenOffice documents (MS Word is apparently also supported), and updates a formatted reference list at the end of the document. It was exceptionally stable, with not a single crash, and installation, database creation and integration into OpenOffice was streamlined and easy. There were a number of little usability hitches, however, which still require some polishing:

• Importing from Google Scholar, where I get the majority of my references, is not very streamlined. I found the best way was to open an ‘Import text window’ in Bibus, and set my Scholar preferences to offer a text-only BibTeX citation for each reference in the search results. I then had to copy and paste the citation into the inport window and hit ‘import’ and drag it from the import buffer into the reference list proper. The need for this buffer was not obvious and it felt like a totally unnessecarilay extra step.
• Inserting the reference into OpenOffice was also a little awkward. EndNote adds a toolbar which lets you insert an in-text citation from inside a MS Word window. Bibus makes you mark the spot in the OpenOffice document, change windows into Bibus and insert, then go back to OpenOffice to make sure it inserted correctly. This is a minor niggle, but can get tedious when you are inserting multiple citations for the same reference.
• The way Bibus imported the BibTeX data was a little haphazard, with it occasionally keeping curly brackets “{“, the BibTeX field delimiters, in the text of the reference itself. I couldn’t tell if this was an error on Bibus or Google Scholar’s side, but either way it meant I had to manually go though at the end and remove a number of stray curly braces from my references section.
• Formatting of the references was inconsistant, even when I repetedly applied a single ruleset to the entire list. Again, this could have been a problem on Scholar’s side.

Mnemosyne is one of the best open-source apps you’ve never heard of

Mnemosyne is da bomb. This is the closest thing humanity has ever had to sticking one of those Matrix cables into the back of your head and streaming info in on a broadband line. Sure, the GUI might not look quite that cyberpunk, but the functionality is all there.

The basic premise of Mnemosyne, according to its creators, is to combine a flashcard viewer with an algorithm that shows you exactly what you need to know at exactly the right time for it to get seared into your gray matter. True, the boilerplate about “spaced repetition” with its vague references to “memory research” and people with long European surnames sounds a little like pseudoscientific babble. Regardless, it seems to work, and damn well.

After viewing each card, Mnemosyne asks you to rate your recall on a scale of 0, “totally forgotten”, to 5, “remembered with ease”. If the card is a new one, it asks using you to rate how familiar it has become on the same scale. These ratings go into the magical black box of the algorithm, and cause the cards to pop up again after a certain period of time. A typical session might involve a good dose of cards you have learned recently but do not yet have entirely memorised, a sprinkling of older cards to keep them fresh in your mind, and five or so brand new cards which you will see several times during the session until you’re confident you have them for a few days. Learning ensues.

Mnemosyne has an interface to put a Spartan barracks to shame. Just below the surface, however, is a treasure trove of handy little features such as three-sided cards, easy categorisation, tweaks to the appearance of cards including a handy feature which blows up the size of foreign script, and more. Once you have used Mnemosyne for a while, you start to get the impression that the developers are heavy users of the program themselves: every time you think “gee, I wish there was a way to -”, you realise that a solution has already been implemented. If not, there’s a small family of plugins, and of course you can always write your own. Want to add a sound file for the pronunciation of some foreign vocab, or an image to identify? Easy. Import a tab separated or XML flashcards database from your old flashcards program? No problems. It also exports cards, which is handy for mobile card viewers like the iPhone’s iStudy.

The only real downside is that it takes a little while for your mind to ‘get’ working with Mnemosyne. If you’re dedicated to learning your content motivation should get over this hump easily. Otherwise, it is easy to see how somebody giving this app a 10-minute test run could dismiss it as a lightweight flash-card flasher and nothing more. It’s not.

Mnemosyne is downloadable for Linux, Windows and OSX. It’s also available in the Ubuntu universe repository.