Re: org-babel: Managing a bibtex database

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

On Jan 21, 2010, at 6:20 AM, Taru Karttunen wrote:

> Hello
>
> I am wondering whether org-babel would be suitable for managing a
> bibtex database of ~1500 entries. I am thinking of making Bibtex
> entries into literate source code and thus have org-mode managing
> them in a more sensible way.
>
> Has anyone else done something like this? Any better ideas how to
> accomplish this?
>
> - Taru Karttunen
>
Aloha Taru,

This is an interesting idea.  I haven't tried it, but I have spent a  
lot of effort over many years maintaining a large BibTeX database.

Once bibtex is registered as an Org-babel language, then bibtex mode  
would be available for editing entries.  Org keywords have an  
immediate and obvious use for topical bibliographies.  The literate  
programming capability of Org-babel might be used to implement an  
authority list for author names, which would help solve one of the  
biggest problems we have trying to maintain a database with many  
contributors.

Please keep me up-to-date as you either implement an org-mode BibTeX  
database or decide against it for some reason.

All the best,
Tom