Look at netbib.mail for more info. Extracted from netlib.mail: Dear List, Well, here is an update on my progress with NETBIB, an auditory bib service via the internet, to help you (and me) with your (our) references. My (our?) goal is to help provide all of us with a highly accurate source of bib info, that can quickly be incorporated into your paper, in any format. Not too surprisingly, there is a lot of software out there already. The UNIX community has been busy, covering our bases, yet again, filling in the gaps that MS has chosen not to fill (yet they charged us, for their own personal greedy money-grubing self-serving reasons). Below is open source that does what we (I?) want, available for free. For those of you that know how to use this stuff, here it is. For those of you who do not, and do not have the time to learn it, my (our) project continues. I will research or write an interface that makes it available to us all, for free. But the basic engine has been written, and, as is typical, is free for the asking. What we still need is a netscape (HTML) interface that makes it easy to use, plus more of your data files, which can be sorted and stored by subject, author, year, or what ever you want, etc. Namely an interface that will search the database of papers, and return a file, preformatted in a format of your choice (Latex, ascii, endnote, yes, and even a doc format, if such a thing exists, in a stable and usable form). I have received 15 bibtex databases, and 7 text databases. I would guess that the text databases are conversions from endnote. Perhaps one is not. As it turns out, the text data bases are not too useful, as there are no key words. Thus it looks like I need to get the endnote source, and process it. I am not ready to do that, so please do not send me any endnote files, or any ascii databases. They are not yet useful to me. However I am still interested in bibtex databases, that are 99.99999% free of errors. It is likely that if the database is of your personal papers only, it is likely pretty free of errors. More later. And thanks for your tremendous support. This is all based on 1% of my time. So please be patient. Jont bp package: http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~jacobsd/bib/bp/index.html perl package: http://www.perl.com/perl/ ====================================== Z39.50 is a spec for bib databases. I read this in PCmag. HomePage for Z39.50: www2.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/I-M/is/studwork/groupf/home.html www.indexdata.dk Website devoted to Z39.50 www.bookwhere.com/blirary.htm list of databases LIST OF INTERNET SERVICES (and PROTOCOLS) The most important Internet services (OSI and TCP/IP) and the related protocols are listed below:- Usenet / NNTP : - news service and public discussion forum; uses NNTP protocol. Gopher : - easy-to-use file retrieval program based on hierarchical distributed menus. FTP : - file transfer protocol, for copying files to and from remote machines. Archie : - database of locations of all files available through FTP. Uses the Prospero protocol. WWW : - a distributed hypermedia system; uses HTTP protocol. >>>> WAIS : - a full text indexing system; uses the Z39.50 protocol. <<<< E-mail : - electronic mail; uses several protocols (SMTP, UUCP, POP, etc.). Telnet : - allows people to login remote machines; uses NFS or AFS protocols. DESCRIPTION: Of the standards being developed specifically for libraries, the most important is American National Standard (ANSI) Z39.50: Information Retrieval Service Definition and Protocol Specification for Library Applications, set forth in 1988 and subsequently revised by NISO, which is a standards development organisation accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Its purpose is to allow one computer operating in a client mode to perform information retrieval queries against another computer acting as an information server. Further development and successful implementation of Z39.50 and its extensions, such as the Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) protocol, will allow for the full exploitation of the MARC format's value to libraries and library users. Balloting has recently started on Z39.50 version 3, wich will allow search and retrieval of specialised data, such as images and full text. EndNote 3.0 supports this standard. www.niles.com it has 17 record types does not support TEX ProCite 4.0 www.risinc.com does not support Z39.50 suppports 28 formats does not support TEX Sea Change Corp www.seawest.seachange.com lets you download and import X39.50 databases to ProCite Data: OVID U of CA's: MELVYN Lib of Congress books database ============================================================================== From: eugene@sally.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) ============================================================================== Formats: refer Slowly disappearing. Advantages: can be used for reformating as well as search. bibTeX Advantages: powerful, can be used with reformatting. Disadvantages: some people give references w/o giving Macros. This can really suck (a real pisser). Bulky. Scribe Slowly disappearing. Advantages: can be used for reformating. Script Slowly disappearing. Advantages: can be used for reformating. Z39.50 and Dublin Core Watch for these. Disadvantages: must be reformatted. InterBib Too early to tell.