Biblioscape User Community

In older versions of Biblioscape, the relationship between folders and references is many-to-many. That means a folder contains many references and a reference can reside in more than one folder. Starting from version 7, the relationship between folders and references has become one-to-many. That means a folder contatins many references and a reference can only reside in one folder. In version 7, Categories has replaced folders to handle the many-to-many relationship between subjects and references. Some users may ask if categories has replaced folders to handle the many-to-many relationship, why folders is still needed.

File cabinet analogy 

Think of your Biblioscape database as a file cabinet, there are 5 kinds of folders in this cabinet. Each kind of folders is made of different material that corresponds to references, notes, tasks, charts, and categories. Think of your references, notes, tasks, and charts as documents inside a folder. In the categories folder, there are many lables of different colors. When collecting references, notes, etc. you first put them into a folder. That is a place where a record belongs to. You may want to put a label on a reference or note record to remind you about something. Later, you may put more lables on a record about different things. When needed, you may pull out all references that care lableled green and read them. This corresponds to a search in Biblioscape based on category. In other times, you may simply take a folder out and go through each record in that folder. This corresponds to folder browsing in Biblioscape. 

Project, subject and classification

Now you have an idea about how records are organized in Biblioscape database. The next question might be what information should be organized with folders and what information should be organized with categories. The general rule is to organize your projects with folders, while using categories to classify your records by different subjects. For example, if you are a professor of life science and you have to manage 3 projects about HIV protease inhibitor, a NIH grant about anti-cancer nucleosides, and a NSF grant about boronic acid, you should create 3 references folders "HIV Protease", "Nucleosides", and "Boronic Acid". Later on, you can tag references in each folder with categories. For example, you can create a group of category items about the different types of HIV protease inhibotors, another group of category items about HIV protease sub-types. All these category items can be used to tag your references under "HIV Protease" folder. You can use categories to classify records in many different dimensions.

Pick the right tool

Folders and categories are designed for different purposes. Since they are both organizing tools with a tree like structure, it can be confusing for a new user to decide which one to use. Here are some general rules:

• Big vs small: Folders are used to organize records in the big pictures. For example, you can create several references folders each for a big project of yours. While categories are used for fine grained classification of your records in many dimensions. For example, under each big project, you may want to sub-divide records by person, location, subjects, events, etc.
• Exclusive vs inclusive: A folder holds records that do not appear in another folder. A category can be used to tag a record that has already been tagged by other categories.
• Single module vs cross module: A folder can only contain records from a single module which can be references, notes, tasks, or charts. A category can be used to tag records from any module. For example, you can create a category called "@home" and use it to tag references, notes, and tasks that needs to be done when you are at home.