Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom bibliography - questions to consider

[C Y]

--- Ralf Hemmecke <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hello Cliff,
> 
> > a)  Do we want to include annotations as part of the bibliography?
> 
> I think yes. But as for you, a .bib file for me is a database format.
> Turning it into a .bib.pamphlet does not gain much if the text
> between the bibentries could also be written inside an annote filed
> of the bibentry. In a pamphlet file, the latex text between the "code
> chunks" (bib-entries) would even be less accessible to different
> views.

Agreed.
 
> Assume I want to have a nice document that annotates references
> related to some area that I am interested in. Then I think it is
> better, one starts a program and generates such a document from a
> database (be it a .bib file or something else). I don't think it
> makes much sense to write up a fixed view on the bibliographic data
> as ONE .bib.pamphlet would be.

Maybe a good idea would be to do a lisp version of bibtool.  I'll have
to look into that.

Sounds like we are on the same page :-).

> > a)  What do we want to do about the "complete bibliography as a
> volume" idea?
> 
> I rather think that should be just digitally accessible with links
> and everything. In book form it only has half the value.

Oh, certainly I would agree that digital access with hyperlinking would
be the most useful (and most common) method.  The two shouldn't be
mutually exclusive though.  In fact, maybe we can use latex2html for
this, since it doesn't rely on images... Hmm... I'll have to do some
tests.  Searching would probably be more difficult... Hmm.

I'm hopeful that someday Axiom will be one of those things like the
Oxford Unabridged Dictionary that all academic libraries will want to
have on their shelves as worth preserving for the ages.  Of course
electronic copies are more useful, but for reading I often prefer a
book.  If Axiom does exist as 10 or 20 printed volumes, I think being
able to print the entire bibliography is probably of some interest, for
the sake of completeness.  But that shouldn't interfere with more
mundane and practical uses :-).

Cheers,
CY

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