1. 
1.1.22. Name
These kind of software applications are called in many different ways:
Sometimes they are also called personal information managers PIM, which is rather another category of products on its own. PIM are free-form database managers designed to handle unformatted pieces of recorded information, i.e. data not belonging to the traditional document type records.
"Bibliography formatting software" is the name that has been used for a long time: it was familiar to users, it emphasizes one important feature that of formatting the output. Formatting citations for the output was the most preminent characteristic at the beginning of their "history", it is still an outstanding one and it represents the core of the manuscript formatting procedure. Given the technical evolution of this family of software, pointing to a general 'management' capability and not just to the 'formatting' one now seems to me to be more appropriate.
- bibliography formatting software
- bibliograpy managers (i.e.: personal bibliography management software)
- bibliography file managers
- citations managers
- literature citation managers
- reference databases
- reference manager databases
- research information managers or assistants
'personal' and, obviously, 'software' are specifications that could always be added to the abovementioned denominations giving a framework like:
| personal | bibliography
citation literature reference research information |
management
|
software |
Sometimes they are also called personal information managers PIM, which is rather another category of products on its own. PIM are free-form database managers designed to handle unformatted pieces of recorded information, i.e. data not belonging to the traditional document type records.
"Bibliography formatting software" is the name that has been used for a long time: it was familiar to users, it emphasizes one important feature that of formatting the output. Formatting citations for the output was the most preminent characteristic at the beginning of their "history", it is still an outstanding one and it represents the core of the manuscript formatting procedure. Given the technical evolution of this family of software, pointing to a general 'management' capability and not just to the 'formatting' one now seems to me to be more appropriate.
