The problem with reference managers, are all the same - the content is kept in proprietary formats, and I can only use that if i use the actual program. There hardly any software that will allow me to manage notes and references without subjugating me to some random format that I can expect to go belly up at any moment.

End result, I have decided to create my own that uses plain text files.

But thanks for your input :-)

While such a naming convention is not a bad idea, I use a mixture of systems, and while I haven't tested how long a filename can be on my linux system, my laptop/(windows) has a limit to how long a filename can be, especially when it is combined with the folder path.

I've come to the conclusion of doing something similar.

I've come up with this structure.

Download -- folder where everything is initially placed when downloading articles or other reference material
Processing -- folder where articles / reference material is placed while I am processing it
Notes -- folder that contains the .txt and the illustrations associated with each article (1)
Repos -- This folder contains all the processed articles and so on, with a copy of both illustrations and the notes (content in this folder is overwritten as i update my notes in Notes folder.

(1) the txt file has a specific format
title (of the file, currently I am calling them 1,2,3,4...etc)
author(s)
journal/place of publication
year
pages
keywords
[actual notes for the file]

illustrations_exp
# explanation (where # is the number of the illustration)

illustrations_list (list of illustrations that are associated with these notes, if i've made any of my own illustrations then i reference them by using
#a_illus_# where # is the number of the illustration and #a is the number of the article the illsutration is associated with

external references (I use this, if for some reason i feel that there is a need to include a reference to either other notes or perhaps my compilations of keyword tables in my excel documents (basically a list of keyareas that articles cover, I use it to build an initial impression on where to focus my work on in the beginning) or if i want to reference other articles that for some reason needs to be mentioned)
--

I've yet to complete my parser / editor for these files but I hope to have that done by summer's end - so i can actively start using it to process my articles, instead of by hand (although there is a lot of be said of the manual method)

Ah, i was not aware that there was a desktop program for mendeley i should look into that, hopefully it will be easier than entering all the information myself

Hey folks,

does anyone have any good tips on organising the wealth of articles they amass during studies and PHD's and so on?

I have somewhere over 350 articles just from 2 semesters at my masters, and I need a more efficient system at organising them than just dropping them all into a folder and having an excel sheet that contains,

article name
authors
abstract
findings
etc.

Its too big and not very good for looking up information.

Does anyone have any better ideas?

I considered building a small script that puts this information into a database, but I am not sure that I gain all that much with it. I also use mendeley for searching, but if I am offline then it doesn't really work for me. Also I add a lot of meta data to my articles, I write notes and so on that I would like to have attached to the articles for easy searching and reviewing.

Regards
Node

Hello,

A search would have revealed plenty of threads about this already. However, depending on what you mean by managing your PDF's, I quite enjoy using mendeley. You can write notes, and use it for citations as well. Look it up.

I am currently taking a Master of Science (MSc) in Engineering (Industrial Management), where SCM is one of the primary focuses.