Organizing papers

I am looking for a way to organize the academic papers that have, over the past year or so, accumulated in big snowdrifts across my desk and shelves. A digital way. I can store them - as my advisor does - in filing cabinets alphabetically by author, but this is less searchable than I'd like. What I really want is some kind of already-customized personal wiki that I can use to store pdf/dvi files of papers, along with some metadata, like a short, searchable summary: title, authors, year, publication name, and maybe my own summary of the results and usefulness of the paper. Enough to remind me of reading the paper, and in a format that is easily searchable.

A private wiki seems to reasonably satisfy my requirements. In a wiki, I could cross-link articles that cite each other, and even do fancier things like have a page where I list all the claims in my M. Sc. research paper and link to the pages for their citations.

Does such software exist? I am surely not the first academic to need and think of such a thing.

I looked at Bibsonomy, but it is not quite what I have in mind. I don't need a social site, or even an online service. Ideally, it would be private and I could maintain it on my own.


This post's theme comic:

Presenting research

I don't like presenting my research. Not because it's unpleasant, but because I psych myself out beforehand and then shake during the presentation. I thought that stage-fright was supposed to decrease with age.

I'm not shy. I think I just fear being judged on something that I really care about. I like my research and want it to be good, accessible, and accepted. I am a decent public speaker, too, I just clam up when I have to present math/CS -- it involves thinking hard while also making a coherent presentation. I just need more practice.

Next presentation? In 15 days.


This post's theme cartoon: