Download the Sources Bibliography

Sources | Studies | Member Publications | Book Reviews | Recent | Combined | Bib FAQ | McGrath# FAQ |

Bibliography icon

Related pages: 

On this page:
Practical Advantages | Which one? | Download as Bookends Library | Collaborate

Practical Advantages

How does bibliography software make research and writing easier?

1. The data entry is only done once -- or, with these downloadable files, is already entered and verified. The bibliography editors welcome corrections and additions.

2. Records include additional explanatory information and links to relevant online resources. You can search the bibliography by tags and fields, as explained on the Research Tool page.

3. You can use bibliography software to manage your pdfs of academic articles and make your research workflow more organized.

4. Bibliography software automatically formats footnotes and generates bibliographies. If you're preparing an article for Participatio, the "Footnote" field contains references pre-formatted according to the Participatio style guide. Just copy a reference from this field and paste it into your word processor and you're done; only slight manual tweaking required. Or, when writing for other journals or publishers, just insert a "citation ID" for a reference into your word processing document. When you're ready to print, all the citations are automatically formatted, in both footnotes and a bibliography, according to whatever format or style you select. And if you should need a different format later on, just rescan the document at a single go.

More: Reference Management Software article at Wikipedia.

Which software should I choose?

The most popular choices are:
1. Bookends (Mac); Wikipedia.
2. Zotero, Wikipedia
3. EndNote, Wikipedia
4. Mendeley, Wikipedia
5. BibTeX; BibDesk (Mac), manual

Software descriptions:

1. Bookends:

The Good: Bookends bibliographies sync automatically between Macs, iPads and iPhones. We used Bookends to create these bibliographies. Only the Bookends library verifiably supports all of the functions as described on the Research Tools page. The other formats are citation files exported from Bookends.

The Bad: Unfortunately, Bookends is designed for Mac OS and iOS and is not available for other platforms and devices.

2. Zotero is a modernized manager with online capabilities.

3. EndNote is the older, classic bibliographic solution. Although it is quite expensive, EndNote was recently updated and now lags less far behind Bookends than it used to. Practically every bibliographic software can import and export EndNote's XML format.

4. Mendeley is a collaborative online solution, owned by Elsevier, and designed for sharing rather than privacy.

5. BibTeX (or BibDesk for Mac) is the bibliographic companion software for LaTeX. Scholars who use LaTeX will choose this solution by default. BibTeX and BibDesk are powerful open-source solutions. They would be an attractive option for scholars not committed to LaTeX even if they were not free.

Clarification: We are Bookends agnostic, and wish to support your use of any bibliographic software. Our current use of Bookends is to facilitate our offline workflow only. While in our view it is an elegant and fully-featured bibliographic manager (superior to the others listed above for our purposes), file formats exported from Bookends in the EndNote XML format will work with non-Bookends bibliographic managers such as EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, or BibTeX. In addition, the bibliographies will soon be integrated into a makeover of the Torrance website without requiring purchase of any dedicated bibliographic software.

Nota bene: Not all of the custom fields and tags transfer over to the non-Bookends software managers, however, but the basic citation information is there.

Ultimately, our core offline software functionality and more will be baked into the new drupal website we are planning for tftorrance.org. Our goals are (1) immediately, to facilitate data entry and organization with Bookends, and then (2) to move to drupal website development and deployment. The Bookends library is, for now, the original and complete version of the bibliographies.

Software Instructions:

From the Bibliography About page, there are several ways to access the Sources bibliography: First, by downloading the offline Bookends library. This is the most convenient and powerful option, if someone has Bookends. Second, by downloading the EndNote XML file. This file contains all of the reference information exported from Bookends, ready to import into the bibliographic management software of your choice (other than Bookends).

Refer to the website of your bibliography management software for instructions and tutorials:
* Bookends; Wikipedia
* Zotero, Wikipedia
* EndNote, Wikipedia
* Mendeley, Wikipedia
* BibTeX; BibDesk (Mac), and manual

EndNote, BibTeX, Zotero, etc.

If you are using software other than Bookends:

(1) create one or more libraries using that software, and then

(2) download the file for the Sources and/or Studies bibliographies that were exported into that format, or a compatible format (EndNote and BibTeX formats are compatible with nearly every software platform).

(3) import each downloaded file into an existing library.

For example, if you're using Zotero, download the EndNote XML file and then import it into a Zotero libary, etc.

Download as Bookends Library

Using the Bookends Library is the most powerful and convenient option, at least for now, until the bibliographies become integrated into a new Fellowship website.

1. Download and install Bookends on your Mac and iOS devices: Bookends download page.

2. Register for a license ($60): Purchase page.

3. Download the Torrance bibliographies (Sources and Studies) as Bookends libraries. Move them to where you want them to reside (e.g., in your Documents or Dropbox folder).

4. Open them and explore!

Bonus:

I. Explore some of the tutorial videos for Bookends. These videos will show how Bookends does more than just manage citations; it is designed (1) to facilitate online research, (2) to serve as a means of organizing pdfs, and also (3) to support notetaking and the annotating of pdfs -- all in a way that syncs between your devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad).

II. Open the Bookends user guide by opening Bookends on your computer and choosing User Guide from the Help menu.

III. Go to our web page which describes The Sources Bibliography as a Research Tool. Use the exercises on that page for practice. See if you can replicate the search operations and obtain the results as described.

Collaborate

We thank you, the members of the T. F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, for your feedback and input to maintain these bibliographies as research tools to catalyze scholarship and promote the mission of the Fellowship. Send corrections, additions and comments to the bibliography editors using the Webmaster contact form. We have made and are continuing to make every effort to check and verify each citation against a physical and/or digital copy of the work. Let us know if you can verify any item on our Wanted List.

Send new materials, corrections, and comments to the bibliography editors using the Webmaster contact form. Also let us know if you can provide or verify any item on our Wanted List.

  • 427 views