The Collection of
Computer Science Bibliographies

Frequently Asked Questions about the Computer Science Bibliography Collection

Before you write to me you should consult this list of questions and their answers.

You should also read the general introduction to this bibliography collection and other material on the bibliography collection. If you have questions concerning the search interfaces then you should read the respective help information on the advanced and simple interface.

Questions:

  1. I am searching for a paper, can you tell me where I can find it?
  2. I am searching for papers on XYZ, can you send me a list of references?
  3. Do you have an online copy of the paper XYZ?
  4. How do I uncompress a bibliography?
  5. There is an error in a reference, please correct it!
  6. I want to install a search interface for a bibliography, can I use your scripts?
  7. Is there a style guide on how to create BibTeX bibliographies?
  8. How can I add bibliographies to the bibliography collection? How can I add references to the bibliography collection?

If your question is not answered on this page you can write to me at liinwwwa@ira.uka.de or fill out the comments form.


Answers:

1. I am searching for a paper, can you tell me where I can find it?

No, I cannot. Everything I know about free bibliographic services on the Internet is contained in the bibliography collection. If you do not find what you are looking for after using a search interface and other services, then I would not know about it, either.

2. I am searching for papers on XYZ, can you send me a list of references?

Sorry, but I cannot. First, I haven't got the time to do your work. Second, I am not familiar with most of the very specialized subjects covered in the bibliography collection.

You will have to use the search interfaces of the bibliography collection to find material relevant to your topic.

3. Do you have an online copy of the paper XYZ?

I have received many mails asking how one can obtain the online version of a paper once one has found an interesting reference by either browsing or searching this collection.

I do not collect online versions of papers and I do not have any information beyond what's contained in this bibliography collection.

I should make it clear that this bibliography collection is not necessarily about online papers but about online references to papers. However many records contain an URL to full text documents. We have integrated CiteSeer records with URL's to archived documents and many OAI-PMH compliant bibliographic data sources. It means, that many recently published works may have its online electronic (and possibly free of charge) version.

Otherwise, there are sometimes ways to find the online paper:

4. How do I uncompress a bibliography?

The bibliographies are compressed with gzip, a GNU program which is available from ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu and many other sites. It will work on virtually all Unix, DOS, VMS operating systems. Those of you who are using a Mac should try MacGzip.

WinZip can also decompress gzipped files on Windows (95,98,NT) platforms.

If you would like the decompression to be done transparently by your browser you might want to have a look at these valuable tips!

5. There is an error in a reference, please correct it!

Most bibliographies are updated regularly from their original locations. Any modifications have to be made by the author/maintainer to his copy of the bibliography. Modifications to local copies in the bibliography collection would be lost with the next update.

Therefore, please check the bibliography that contains the reference. If it is not supported any more then I can modify my local copy, otherwise you have to direct your suggestion to the author of the bibliography.

6. I want to install a search interface for a bibliography, can I use your scripts?

That would not be a good idea since my search scripts are tailored to work with the architecture of the bibliography collection and they are way too complicated for small bibliographies (<= 10,000 entries). Small bibliographies do not need an indexing program, they can be searched by a grep-like script.

7. Is there a style guide on how to create BibTeX bibliographies?

I know of two such style guides:

  1. from the Computational Learning Bibliography
  2. From the Bibliography Network Projet (BibNet)

The latter also deals with the question of how to deal with online publications.

I have made a short, selected list of tools that help in the creation of bibliographies.

8. How can I add bibliographies to the bibliography collection? How can I add references to the bibliography collection?

You can add both whole bibliographies and individual paper referencees to the bibliography collection using a variety of submission mechanisms. Please see this page on how to proceed.

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