BibDesk Wiki

Adding a New Search Group

BibDesk search groups allow you to search certain servers for bibliography information that you can easily import into your BibDesk database. Currently BibDesk can search servers for Z39.50 (the old standard for libraries around the world), SRU (the new standard for libraries), Entrez (e.g. PubMed),, and DBLP. ( Web of Science support has been discontinued by the server).

• New default or custom search group:
  1. Choose Searches->New Search Group...
  2. Select a server type
  3. Select a default server from the popup, or Other for a custom server
  4. Supply the necessary server information for a custom server. You need to supply a name and database, for Z39.50 and SRU you also need to supply the host address and port number.
  5. Hit OK
• New search group from bookmark:
  1. Select a search group bookmark from the Searches menu
• New search group from file:
  1. Drop a .bdsksearch file on the Groups pane (left side) of the main window

Adding a Bookmark for a Search Group

You can save a search group - including the search term - to a bookmark. With the search group selected, choose Searches->Add Bookmark..., and enter a title for the bookmark. You can later add the search group as described above.

Saving a Search Group to File

You can save a search group - without the search term - to file. Simply drag the search group from the side bar to the Finder. You can later add the search group as described above.

Adding a Default Server

The default servers are the named servers that appear in the Server popup in the search group editing sheet.

• Adding a custom server to the default servers:
  1. Select the search group and choose Edit->Get Info or double-click the search group icon in the side bar to show the server settings.
  2. You may need to select the downward arrow next to the Server popup to view the full server information.
  3. Hit the Add button.
• Adding a search group from file as a default server:
  1. Move or copy the search group file to ~/Library/Application Support/BibDesk/SearchGroupServers/ (~ is the home folder of this user). You may have to create this folder if it does not exist.
  2. Restart BibDesk.

Editing a Default Server

Occasionally you may want to edit the server information for a default server.

• Editing a default server:
  1. Show the server information as described above. Make sure you have a default server selected.
  2. Hit the Edit button.
  3. Edit the server information.
  4. Hit the Set button to commit the changes to the default server.
  5. Hit OK to commit the changes to the current search group.

Removing a Default Server

Occasionally you may want to remove a default server. On 1.9.7and later, if this server was edited, you first have to reset it to its default settings, as described below.

• Removing a default server:
  1. Show the server information as described above. Make sure you have a default server selected.
  2. Hit the Remove button, if it is available (otherwise, first reset it as below).

Resetting a Standard Default Server to the Factory Settings

After editing a standard default server, you may want to reset that default server to its factory settings. Note that this description is only valid on 1.9.7 and later.

• Resetting a server:
  1. Show the server information as described above. Make sure you have a default server selected.
  2. Hit the Reset button, if it is available (otherwise there is nothing to reset).

Resetting All the Default Servers to the Factory Settings

After changing adding or editing default servers, you may want to reset the default servers to their factory defaults. Note that this will reset the settings for all standard servers, and removes custom default servers that you added.

• Resetting the default servers:
  1. Show the server information as described above.
  2. Hit the Reset All button.

Links to Search Groups

BibDesk also supports custom URLs you can use to add links in a document to quickly open search groups in BibDesk. A search group URL has the syntax

x-bdsk-search://server/database;name?options

For Entrez, WoK, and DBLP groups, the server part is entrez, isi, and dblp respecitively. For Z39.50 and SRU groups, the server part has the form host:port or user:password@host:port. The name part is optional and defaults to the database. The options part is optional, and consists of zero or more option=value pairs, separated by &. Any group can have a searchTerm option. Z39.50 groups in addition recognize the options recordSyntax, resultEncoding, and removeDiacritics. SRU groups in addition recognize the options recordSyntax, secure, and version, and in addition are required to have a type option that must have the value SRU. You can also pass the name, database, username, or password in the options. Invalid URL characters as well as reserved characters (such as ;/?:@&=+$,) need to be %-escaped. E.g. a space character is escaped as %20. Some examples for the Library of Congress and PubMed search groups:

x-bdsk-search://z3950.loc.gov:7090/Voyager;Library%20of%20Congress?recordSyntax=US%20MARC&resultEncoding=marc-8
x-bdsk-search://lx2.loc.gov:210/LCDB;Library%20of%20Congress?type=SRU
x-bdsk-search://entrez/pubmed;PubMed

You can easily get a URL for a search group by choosing Group URL from the contextual menu.

Custom Servers

This is a list of additional search groups that can be added to BibDesk. These search groups are written by BibDesk users; for further discussion or to post groups, use the BibDesk-users mailing list. Right-click the link to save them.

• Z39.50 Servers
  • OCLC ArticleFirst - "OCLC index of articles from the contents pages of journals." (Alex Montgomery)
  • OCLC ECO - "An OCLC collection of scholarly journals." (Alex Montgomery)
  • OCLC WorldCat - "OCLC catalog of books and other materials in libraries worldwide." (Alex Montgomery)
  • Orbis Cascade Summit - "A library catalog that combines information from Pacific Northwest academic libraries into a single unified database." (Alex Montgomery)
  • baC - "Catalogue of the public libraries of Berlin." (Simon Spiegel)
  • Helveticat - "Swiss national library." (Simon Spiegel)
  • NEBIS -"Network of Libraries and Information Centers in Switzerland." (Simon Spiegel)
  • SUB Göttingen - "from GBV catalogue. Find information for other German library catalogues via the links on the page." (Sven-S. Porst)
• Entrez Databases
  • Entrez databases - All available Entrez databases (Christiaan Hofman)