Software for Marine Mammalogists: Papyrus 8 for Macintosh
by Jan Herrmann

Part 2/3: Working in the database

The usual display is a list of references. You can switch to single reference view by mouseclick or by pressing a key. All the display formats are customisable. You can decide, if you want to see the abstract with bold titles or authors in italic etc. If you have more than ~32.000 references in your database Papyrus can’t show a window with all references due to MacOS limitations. But this is more an optical problem. Apart from that you can work as usual in those big databases, especially when you use groups (see below). Papyrus keeps open one database at a time. You can have more databases, but you have to close one to work in another.

Finding references. In the find dialogue you can define Boolean searches by using AND, OR, NOT and parentheses. You can search all fields, but searches limited to the main fields (author, title, abstract, comments...) are much faster because those are the indexed fields. Papyrus can put out the results of the search while it is still searching, so you can start working on those references.
The results are collected in a group. You can save groups, edit, rerun and combine the searches you have made. For different projects you can keep different groups of references.
A faster way of finding references is using the "Quickfind" button. This button is part of your keywords, journals or authors term lists. So just select a keyword of interest, click on quickfind and all the references bearing this keyword will be presented to you in a new group.

Keywords. Papyrus' hierarchical keywords are a unique help. Just set taxonomic keyword relations with the keyword linking function. So you don't have to give the keywords Cetacea, Odontoceti, Delphinidae, Tursiops truncatus altogether to make sure this reference is listed when you perform a search for one of the keywords. You just define once that Tursiops truncatus is a sub-category of Delphinidae which is a sub-category of Odontoceti and so on. The same works of course with geographical spots (Vancouver - British Columbia - Canada) or anatomical structures (alveolar macrophage - alveola - lungs - respiratory system).
Furthermore you can use links to define synonyms, when you keep the scientific as well as the common species name in your keywords list.

Graphics. Papyrus can store images inside the database. With the predefined reference type "slide" you can keep track of all your slides which you sell to newspapers or magazines from time to time. Because of Papyrus open design you can even set up a catalogue of dorsal fins along with the according data. But be aware that pictures let your database grow very fast.

Papyrus and the Internet. Directly from within Papyrus you can go to Internet sites, specified in the references or journal entries.

Papyrus can export your reference in HTML to put them directly onto your website. But you can also create own HTML codes to make Papyrus a perfect helper for the maintenance of your website. I use Papyrus to put out reviewed bookmarks or entries in the list of museums with whale skeletons on our homepage (http://www.cetacea.de).

Security. If your reference collection is on a computer with free access for a lot of students or co-workers you might want to use the security option of Papyrus. So all users can search and print, but only those with passwords can enter references and only those with a master password can delete and change important settings.

Drag and Drop. You can drag and drop within references, from other applications to Papyrus and from Papyrus to other applications. You can also cite by drag & drop.

Term lists not only collect author names you have used, keywords or glossary terms. You get along the information how often an author or a keyword is present in your database and you can immediately find all belonging references with the above-mentioned Quickfind button.
The journals are kept in a list, where you can additionally keep the associate call number of your local library, the Web Address of the Journal, ISSN number and more.

Spellchecker. You can spellcheck your references. Papyrus offers an interface for third party spellcheckers. I use to work with the freeware spellchecker Excalibur (2).

Help. There are five ways to get help. From within the program you can use the balloon help or you can launch a help file in your web browser. You can look up the handbooks as PDF file or paperware. Furthermore there is a mailing list with many users to ask for assistance. The handbooks are very well written and it's entertaining to read them although it's computer literature.

User Interface. The face of the application is highly customisable. So you can define the view of the single reference or list view with formats, fonts and style you like. Most features have shortcuts which you'll learn automatically while you are working with Papyrus. Unfortunately there were not enough shortcuts for all the features available. Depending on your needs you'll encounter a missing shortcut or button for some functions (e.g. merge, delete).

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