What part does a Reference Management System really play?

thoresson

Having watched almost all of @ctietze and @sfast's videos and read both here on the forum and elsewhere, I still don't fully understand the role of a RMS. Is it correct that the orginal, core functionality was to keep a running list of all articles a researcher read and have the RMS create a reference list in whatever format needed?

And over time the different RMS software has evolved to also include functionality like highlighting in pdf's, notes etc?

Sascha

The RMS is what it says: It manages the references. NOT: What is referenced. A big difference.

The *.bib-file is just a list of references. To put in proper terms: For the footnote fuck fest in a well researched text it puts the fucks in the fest.

thoresson

With “not what is referenced” you mean the content? The core functionality of a RMS is to make it easy to generate footnotes in the correct format, based on entries in the RMS, each with a title, author etc?

But many RMS does have more functionality beyond that, but that’s where Zettelkasten is another option?

Sascha

@thoresson said:
With “not what is referenced” you mean the content? The core functionality of a RMS is to make it easy to generate footnotes in the correct format, based on entries in the RMS, each with a title, author etc?

Yes.

@thoresson said:
But many RMS does have more functionality beyond that, but that’s where Zettelkasten is another option?

Depends to what functionality you refer to. Many RMS offer to manage pdf-files for example. This is not reference management but rather file management. The text is not a reference.