BibDesk

BibDesk is an organizational software created to help you edit and manage your bibliography. It keeps track of your bibliographic information as well as said information's associated web links and files. BibDesk is an open source project, and as such is completely free to use. Other people are constantly expanding upon and refining BibDesk's source code. Older builds can be used if your system can't support the current build. BibDesk is able to manage all of your references. It can pull bibliographic information like publication dates. It can also include details regarding publication type, and store links to web pages and local files. If you so choose, BibDesk can automatically organize, move, and rename your information files for you. You can use BibDesk's search field to sift through your entire bibliography for specific terms. It will instantaneously filter out all entries that don't contain your searched terms. This is ideal for large projects with multiple sections and sources. There are also advanced options including full searches of every PDF file associated with your bibliographic information, and customizable "smart groups" which always show publications that match certain predetermined keywords. BibDesk includes a number of different import features. You can import simple text files as well as richer BibTEX and RIS files. RIS files can be downloaded from many scientific web sites. In addition, there's an ability to integrate with online resources so that bibliographic information can be extracted from web pages. BibDesk can use protocols like Z39.50 or Entrez to gain direct access to library catalogues and other publication sites. BibDesk can be exported to a number of different formats. It works with standard formats like RIS, BibTEX or EndNote. You can also receive a rich text document or PDF file which you can copy and paste into your final research paper. With collaborative projects, BibDesk allows you to share your bibliography with your colleagues, and to export your bibliography to both HTML and RSS formats. Since BibDesk is an open source software, there are also many user-contributed scripts that make varying bibliographic chores much easier to deal with.