My Library Database

A blank database called My Library is provided with the program. This database is for you to use as your own personal bibliographic database. If you started using Nota Bene before version 13, you may have created your own database with a different name. You can continue using that database and just ignore the My Library database.

It is recommended that you use just one new database for all of your bibliographic references. You can have as many non-bibliographic (IbidPlus) databases as you need, but in almost all cases it is best to have only one bibliographic database. The main reason for having only one bibliographic database is that each paper that you write in Nota Bene will access only one bibliographic database. If you have only one bibliographic database, you do not have to worry about deciding which database to use for a given paper, or which database to use when you are entering a new book or article.

It may make sense to have more than one bibliographic database if you are maintaining bibliographic data on completely different topics. The topics should be distinct and not overlapping so that it is clear that you would not want to cite works from the two different databases in the same paper. For example, you could have one database for your professional research and another for your hobby. If you want to create a new database, see New Database.

Ibidem provides you with the capacity to search through a large database quickly and easily and to create subsets. If you think that you would like to have a smaller or more targeted database in addition to your main database, you can achieve this objective by creating a subset of your main database. Subsets can be opened, sorted and searched, and they can be used to generate bibliographies or other reports. See Subsets.

Databases are limited to approximately 64,000 records. This is more than enough for virtually all individual uses.

If you have a bibliographic database that was created using another bibliographic software, you may be able to import your database into a new Ibidem database. For detailed instructions on creating a new database, and/or on converting from another format, see the following:

Finally, don't forget to backup you Ibidem database! All of your work needs to be backed up, and your database is no exception. See Ibidem Backup.