I am a new user of Bookends. Impressed with the software so far compared to Papers and Endnote. I want to get my whole work group of 5-10 lab assistants and fellow researchers working on Bookends. Some projects will use standalone libraries, but if we want to have central repositories of shared libraries (citations and PDFs), I am not sure how to set that up. Anyone have any experience doing this? I see I can use Dropbox, but without some sort of check in/checkout procedure that seems that it could become a mess, quickly. Ay other ideas?
Thanks,
Rob
how to share Bookends library, ay guidelines or suggestions
Re: how to share Bookends library, ay guidelines or suggesti
Hi
There are two options at present. Once is to use Bookends Sync, in which each person syncs with a central database on a server (i.e. a volume that can accessed on the network). The user guide (Help menu) has a scenario for this.
The second is probably overkill for you, and probably not what you want, but be aware that with a little effort Bookends can be an HTTP server, and you can share references over the web, via browsers, to anyone on any platform. Also in the user guide ("Bookends Server").
Jon
Sonny Software
There are two options at present. Once is to use Bookends Sync, in which each person syncs with a central database on a server (i.e. a volume that can accessed on the network). The user guide (Help menu) has a scenario for this.
The second is probably overkill for you, and probably not what you want, but be aware that with a little effort Bookends can be an HTTP server, and you can share references over the web, via browsers, to anyone on any platform. Also in the user guide ("Bookends Server").
Jon
Sonny Software
Re: how to share Bookends library, ay guidelines or suggesti
Any users out there who have done this. At work our machines are behind a firewall. And in my previous experience, many web hosts won't customize software or a database. So since Bookends is not cloud-friendly, has anyone found a commercial web host who will setup a bookends database for sharing?
Thanks,
Rob
Thanks,
Rob
Re: how to share Bookends library, ay guidelines or suggesti
Firewalls I'm familiar will will let you whitelist app (System Preferences, Firewall -> All incoming connection).
Having said that, you cannot directly share a Bookends database. By that I mean you can have two instances of Bookends open the same database over a network. You'll get an error if you try.
If you don't want to use Bookends sync, you may be able to use a service like Dropbox to "share" the same database (which will be up- and downloaded as changes are made).
Jon
Sonny Software
Having said that, you cannot directly share a Bookends database. By that I mean you can have two instances of Bookends open the same database over a network. You'll get an error if you try.
If you don't want to use Bookends sync, you may be able to use a service like Dropbox to "share" the same database (which will be up- and downloaded as changes are made).
Jon
Sonny Software
Re: how to share Bookends library, ay guidelines or suggesti
Hi Rob,
I use the sync option to keep my 2 libraries on different computers in sync. They both sync with a library on the server that is never actually loaded in Bookends. I have set the options of both to "Master/client is chosen automatically using last sync dates". The only thing to be borne in mind is that this type of syncing is a two-step process. The first time you sync a library you "add new references" which have been added to the library on the server. If you have not added any references to the local library this is all you need to do. If you have added refs to the local library as well, you must disable the "References to be deleted" because otherwise you will lose these refs. Once the local library has been synced you can then perform another sync which will upload the new local references to the server library (to be distributed to all other libraries). There are no doubt good reasons why this must be a two-step process but it would be much more convenient if both steps could be combined. It would be even better if the whole process was completely automated so that changes to all libraries are updated right away in the background without any user intervention.
I use the sync option to keep my 2 libraries on different computers in sync. They both sync with a library on the server that is never actually loaded in Bookends. I have set the options of both to "Master/client is chosen automatically using last sync dates". The only thing to be borne in mind is that this type of syncing is a two-step process. The first time you sync a library you "add new references" which have been added to the library on the server. If you have not added any references to the local library this is all you need to do. If you have added refs to the local library as well, you must disable the "References to be deleted" because otherwise you will lose these refs. Once the local library has been synced you can then perform another sync which will upload the new local references to the server library (to be distributed to all other libraries). There are no doubt good reasons why this must be a two-step process but it would be much more convenient if both steps could be combined. It would be even better if the whole process was completely automated so that changes to all libraries are updated right away in the background without any user intervention.