PDF inventory software

[John Almberg]

On Jun 8, 2009, at 5:17 PM, Daniel Underwood wrote:

> I'm looking for a way to manage my personal collection of research
> articles.  Ideally I'd like some way to keep records on authors,
> keywords, journals, and publication years of articles (PDF files)
> downloaded onto my local drive.
>
>  In the course of reading literature for research, it often happens
> that I find myself wanted to return to something I have previously
> read, but I only recall a few "things" about the article, often the
> author and a keyword.  Is there some inventory/database software (for
> local use only) that can be easily used for this purpose?  (The
> closest things that comes to mind (conceptually) is "image collection"
> software.)
>
> What are some of my options here?

I know this probably won't help pure FreeBSD users, but if, like me,  
you use FreeBSD for servers, and Macs for desktop, I can't resist  
recommending my favorite program of all time, Yojimbo:

http://www.barebones.com/products/Yojimbo/

This is a general purpose 'Memory Bank'. You can throw all kinds of  
information into it, tag it with keywords, and retrieve it in an  
instant. It integrates with all Mac programs, so I use it all the  
time... Any time I get a pdf or web page I think I *might* want to  
reference someday, I throw it into Yojimbo. It's also great for  
documenting how to do things, so you don't have to relearn how to do  
a certain complicated thing 6 months after you figured it out the  
first time (I hate that).

It's hard to explain how it works, but it is the most incredibly  
useful program. Wish there was something like it in ports.

-- John