Biblioscape User Community

All your information objects in Biblioscape are organized under a single folder tree. There are several kinds of folders for organizing different types of information objects. They are Domain folders, References folders, Notes folders, Tasks folders, Charts folders, Categories folders

Domain folders

The yellow domain folders are usually at the top level. You may have two domain folders one called Work and the other one called Personal. All your references folders and notes folders about your work are under one domain folder, while all references and notes folders about your hobby projects are under the personal domain folder. Some users may have one domain folder about research and another one about teaching. Domain folders should not be used to specify research projects, they are best organized by categories. Domain folders should be created with caution. In a physical world, a domain folder is like the file cabinet. A file cabinet can have many subject folders. You may only have a few file cabinets designated to store totally unrelated things.

Folders and search folders

All other folder types are designed to store only one type of information objects. For example, you can not put a note under a references folder. Different kinds of folders may reside under a single domain folder. For example, under the Teaching domain folder, there may be a references folder about one class and another notes folder about a different class. For references, notes, and tasks, etc. a folder represents a physical location. A place where an object belongs. An information object like a reference or a note may have many functions, properties, and uses which can be best managed by categories. But it has only one place it resides which is a folder. The folder name is actually one of the properties of an information object. But there is another type of folder which its name is not part of an information object's properties. They are called search folders. When you define a frequently used query, you may want to keep it. So you won't have to re-define the query next time you use it. You can then save the query as a search folder. So a search folder is just a query. It will includes any information objects that satisfy the saved query. For example, you can have a search folders that include all references about a certain subject published by a certain publisher. When there is a new reference added to your database that satisfy the query condition, it will automatically show up in that search folder. You don't have to put it there. Search folders are indicated by a special icon in the search folder column.

Folders and link folders

As your records collection grows, there may be a need to put a record in more than one folder. This is not possible with a regular folder because a record can only reside in one folder. But you can create a virtual folder called link folder. A link folder doesn't contain any records. It only contains links to your records. When you click on a link folder, all the records linked to it will be retrieved and it looks just like a regular folder. On the folder pane, a link icon will be displayed in the last column. Link folder can be used as a handy tool to organize your records. For example, if you need to create a list of all the references for a new report, you can just create a link folder. Then drag and drop references from other places to this link folder. The references you dragged are not moved to this link folder. Biblioscape just create a link. So all those records can be retrieved easily.