Software for Marine Mammalogists:

Papyrus 8 for Macintosh

by Jan Herrmann

This review appeared in the European Cetacean Society (ECS) Newsletter Nr. 39. The text you read here has been slightly enhanced and actualized.
Many of you might know the reference managing application Papyrus 7, because the IWC literature database is delivered with it (1). Now a fully redesigned Papyrus 8 for Macintosh is available and after having used it for over a year I will give you a brief overview of benefits and drawbacks. Interested Windows users can still read on since the makers of Papyrus are busy working on a Windows version.

The following review is divided into three parts acknowledging the three main tasks of reference management: Import/Entry of references, database and reference handling (editing, searching) and Citing/Export.

Importing references

Papyrus offers import formats for sources as CD-ROMs (ASFA, BIOSIS), Update Services (Current Contents), Internet Downloads (PubMed, BiomedNet), other Bibliography Managers (EndNote, ProCite) or Bibliography text files. For all the sources with an importable structure but no import format so far, RSD offers to build an import format for free. I used this service once and received an import format via email two days after I sent an example file to RSD.
There is also an internal transfer format for the transfer of Papyrus 7 databases to Papyrus 8. With this one I could transform the IWC database to the Macintosh version without trouble. At the moment you can't access certain library archives via Z39.50 standard, a feature offered of some other applications. This would be a welcome addition some day.

Import. As an EndNote user you'll find the time an import takes in Papyrus noticeable longer. But there's a reason for that. Papyrus is indexing all incoming references for later faster access, it is keen on consistency of your database and checks the incoming references. Furthermore it keeps track of your authors, journals and keywords in sophisticated lists. But that doesn't has to bother you, since Papyrus is able to work in the background. You can start working on your references while Papyrus is performing an import.

Entering references. When you have to enter references by hand, I don't know any Personal Bibliography Manager as helpful as Papyrus. Wherever you enter anything Papyrus completes your word or phrase by using the Lookup command. This supports you in getting the desired author, journal or keyword, or in writing species names, just by typing a few letters. So it's easy to keep your database error free and consistent.

If you work in groups on the same database, you can define a certain range of reference numbers for each co-operator to avoid merging confusions.
After you have entered authors and year Papyrus warns you when you are about to enter a duplicate. If you are missing important bibliographic information, Papyrus offers to add the keyword INCOMPLETE to your reference which goes along with an information mark in the References list window. So you can spot those references which need your completion.

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