---
# System prepended metadata

title: Library and Information Manager

---

# Library and Information Manager

*[LIS]: Library and Information Science
*[DoT]: DNS-over-TLS
*[DoH]: DNS-over-HTTPS

- For professional research, personal research, and course study.
- Reference manager: bibliographic metadata database
    - Paperpile
        - My favorite
        - Fully web-based
        - Deep integration with Google drive
        - Priced
        - Among all browsers, only chrome is supported
    - Zotero, Mendeley
        - Free
        - Open-sourced
        - Apple silicon is not supported
        - Require either plugins or registrations for cloud storage
    - EndNote
        - Microsoft ecosystem
        - Priced
    - ReadCube Papers
        - Priced
        - Apple silicon is not supported
    - Papers 3
        - Discontinued for Mac in 2020
- Bibliographic search engine/repository
    - Google Scholar
    - arXiv
    - IEEE eXplore
    - JSTOR
    - Libgen/SciHub
- Note manager
    - Hackmd
        - Requires special web interface (due to its vast array of supported markdown features) even for offline self-hosted codimd
    - Notions
        - Slow
        - No self-hosted option
    - OneNote
        - Microsoft ecosystem
    - EverNote
    - Obsidian
    - Google Keep
- Document Preparation
    - Markdown editors
    - Microsoft words
    - Google docs
    - Overleaf/Lyx/TexStudio/TexMaker
    - vim/vscode + TexLive/MacTex/MikTex + latexmk
- Workflow
    - git/gitless
    - Gdrive/iCloud/dropbox/github/ipfs
    - Slack/focalboard/jira

## What I want

:::info
Look into Wolfram softwares.
:::

:::warning
The Cloudflare IPFS gateway may take down certain files, e.g., multimedia streaming and some books like *The Math(s) Fix*.
:::

- Both cloud-hosted and self-hosted
- Enable a fully offline workflow
- Outsource editors and document viewer
    - manual latex compilation and editing
    - overleaf/vscode/vim/emacs integration
    - TXT, PDF, DJVU, EPUB readers
- Native apps
    - Cloud native app, progressive web app
    - iOS/MacOS native app (support Apple silicon)
    - Windows native app
    - *nix based native app
    - This reduces to the most significant app development dilemmata (portable code base):
        - to electron or not to electron
        - to flutter or not to flutter
        - to ionic or not to ionic
        - C? C++/Qt? C#/WPF? Java/AndroidSDK? Swift/SwiftUI? Dart? Javascript/CSS?
- Totally open-sourced
    - Host on GitHub (**sign commits with GPG**) and **IPFS**
- Retrieve books from **Libgen** CloudFlare IPFS gateway
    - Tor?
    - Libgen is the best repository and search engine for books.
    - Libgen has a set of RESTful APIs, unlike Google scholar and SciHub.
- Retrive papers from **SciHub** through Libgen gateway
    - Tor?
    - Libgen is the best search engine for SciHub papers.
- Your personal database should interface with github, gdrive, icloud, dropbox, and ipfs.
    - Look into git + ipfs + encryption.
- Unique identity?
    - Idena
    - **ORCID**
    - GPG key
    - KeyBase
    - Yubikey
- Privacy?
    - **Tor**
    - VPN
    - DNSSEC, DoT/DoH
- A **complete redesign** of bib/note management UI
    - Folders, tags, and mindmaps, as done by the celebrated *Notions*, are too rudimentary.
    - Look into MIT visualisation research?
    - Look into LIS research?
- Collaboration is best done through Git.
    Live collaboration is only useful for intensive discussion on-the-fly.
- Combine messaging, note sharing, and progress tracking in one place.
    - This is similar to software development management.
    - Kanban boards, Jira, Slack, and FocalBoard are all too rudimentary.
        It requires a **complete redesign** as in bib/note management UI.
- Integrate codes via literate programming
    - Jupyter
    - Google Colab
    - [Observable](https://observablehq.com)
    - R studio/markdown
    - MatLab/simulink
    - Julia for VSCode
    - Wolfram
- Great **documentation** for this project
    - Explain software architecture
    - Explain usage
    - API documentation
    - Look into DocC. A **complete redesign** of creating documents, interacting with documents, and 