Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibO in Academia

Re: Free Bibliographic Software

This is a copy of a thread that Martin had started re: Free 
bibliographic software. This copy also includes my answer to his thread.

Marc


===================

Le 2010-10-16 18:26, j.martin.pedersen a écrit :

Hi Martin

Welcome to the marketing list and many thanks for your input. The 
purpose of the marketing list is to discuss the various approaches to 
marketing the "LibreOffice" brand. Your input is exaclty the type of 
input that I am particularly interested in hearing and documenting. LibO 
needs to take stock of missing functionalities that would make it a more 
viable tool in the academic arenas.

I have often heard from people of the power of LibO (OpenOffice) 
however, the lacking tools for academia have made it such that many (in 
academia) who have tried it have had to abandon LibO for lack of tools 
in particular areas.

So, I hope to make a list of these tools that are necessary to market 
LibO as a possible tool for our academic colleagues and hope that a dev 
(or many devs) will show interest in expanding these tools through 
whatever means possible either by plugin (obviously the preferred 
choice) or LibO coded addition (permanently coded into LibO -- not 
likely to happen)

So, onto your list:

>
> Hi list,
>
> I have just subscribed because of a thread on the discuss list about
> bibliographic software for LO, because I am interested in academic use
> of Free Software, which for most people require being able to handle
> existing bibliographic databases. (Currently I am on the fringe of
> academia, doing bits of precarious research, funding application writing
> and teaching, having finished a PhD in February titled "Property,
> Commoning and the Politics of Free Software".)
>
>
> There is a wealth of options, somehow.  http://www.zotero.org/ is very
> interesting. Moving to the browser level makes a lot of sense for
> researchers - that's where you need it most of the time (auto-adding
> PDFs, URIs etc.) and if connected to ISBN databases it can make life a
> lot easier.

I will be looking for comment on those using Zotero to see if this is a 
viable and functional plugin. I have tried Zotero, found it quite 
complete, however, not being involved in any academic research could not 
evaluate it in a "real time" situation. A friend of mine in Music 
Therapy research took a look at it and found it too complex to adopt. 
She reverted back to MSOffice on her MacBook. This is the only feedback 
I got from her as she said that she did not have enough time to research 
the plugin due to the time frame of her 1.5 project deadline.

We will need more feedback from people using Zotero. I found it to be 
quite promising.


> But Bibus: http://bibus-biblio.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
> - last update in 2009!?!?
>
> and: http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/ - Last updated in 2008!?!
>
> "List address      announce@bibliographic.openoffice.org
> List description     A moderated mailing list for announce messages
> Total messages     2"
>
> This does not inspire confidence :)
>

I will try to get back on the marketing list about these and 
development. I will try to contact them about their project's status at 
the moment. My feeling are that if they have not been worked on for such 
a long period of time, then they have most likely been abandoned and the 
project have been left open for some other groups adoption. I am sure 
someone will comment if they are aware of these projects.

> My questions are:
>
> What happened to the OOo Bibliography project?
>
> And what are the many competing visions for a bibliographical system
> that exist across platforms?
>
> Finally, how can the Free Software world create a bibliographic system
> that integrates all the best of existing systems in a cross-platform GUI
> that is compatible with the dominant systems (Endnote etc.) and which
> integrates with OOo, LO, and even that M$ Office thing and of course
> Firefox or Zotero?

I believe our concern here is with LibO integration only. But this is 
open for comments.

>
> There should be a basis for a project with social and computing science
> departments. The time is right for institutions to explore cuts in their
> licensing costs. Always look on the bright side...
>
> -martin

Agreed.

>
> PS: https://www.mendeley.com was suggested on that threat and that is a
> very interesting looking project, but it is not free, only as in beer.
>

Thanks. I visited the site and, indeed, they do look promising and seem 
quite active. We will need some feedback on people using their product 
with LibO. It may integrate well with OpenOffice, but we will have to 
gauge if LibO integration is done smoothly.

We may have to start a Wiki page on LibO Education Academia to track 
these options.

Maybe a comment from Drew or Florian?

Marc
===================




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